dir. Bent Hamer
writ. Bent Hamer and Jim Stark from novel by Charles Bukowski
feat. Matt Dillon, Lily Taylor, Marisa Tomei, Fisher Stevens
Dillon pulls off a convincing Bukowski/Chinaski, smartly veering away from a direct impression of Bukowski's nasal delivery and nailing the swaggering drift between arrogance and humble self-loathing that seeps from his work. And the well-selected quotes dropped into the narration are some of the best examples of Bukowski's ethic, more direct and pointed than many of his ramblings.
As this is Bukowski, drink and destitution are always close at hand, but also bouts of sex, near-love, damaged beauty and strange brushes with wealth and success.
The film manages to vindicate without glorifying Bukowski's life, best illustrated by a scene in which he slips through his briefest held job, cleaning an enormous lobby statue at a newspaper where he'd hoped to be a reporter. As his consideration of his odd situation leads him astray, off to the bar to think it over, it becomes clear that he's more than a drunken lout with a penchant for the pen, but a confused yet driven man who can't escape his singular need to write, everything else falling by the wayside.
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