Minor spoilers ahead...
Well, looks like I might be the only person in the world who's going to defend this movie! Here goes...
I first saw this back in the mid 90's when I was a teenager myself. I fell asleep on the couch watching TV one night and this movie came on around 2am. It was one of those movies that you wouldn't normally be into, but you sit and watch 5 minutes, then you want to see the next 10 minutes, and the next, and so on. Anyway, I woke up in the middle of the movie and for some reason I cant explain, I was captivated by it! (Since then, I have watched the movie in it's entirety a few times!)It's about these 2 guys, Phil, a suicidal teen junkie, and Dumar, a former musician with a history of depression, though he seems to have moved past it. They recognize something in each other, and a friendship forms between them.
Before I go any further with the plot, let me just acknowledge some of what other reviews have said about the movie; Yes, the production values are pretty terrible. It looks like somebody filmed this with an old VHS camcorder or something! Looking back now, I think maybe that was why I was so drawn to the movie when I first saw it. It just looked so different from everything else on TV then, I had to see how it ended! The acting is passable, save for Ami Dolenz's performance. *minor spoiler here* There is a scene early in the movie where she commits suicide in the bathroom of some night club. The scene basically serves as a jumping-off-point for Phil and Dumar's friendship, in that, it succeeds, but the scene itself, while meant to be dramatic and tragic, comes off as more unintentionally comical.
Phil and Dumar's friendship is what drives everything GOOD about this movie! Consciously, Phil seems to think suicide is a cool thing to do and that it must take a lot of courage to go through with it. But deep down, sub-consciously, he wants to live, so he spends a lot of time grilling Dumar about his past and what his beliefs are about life, death, God, etc... Dumar doesn't give him much at first, after all he doesn't know this guy well enough to trust him with his deepest feelings about those subjects. But as time goes on, he does share with Phil more and more about his past. The friendship between them, how it began and how it progressed felt very organic. That aspect was very well written in my opinion! The end, as other reviewers have mentioned, does get a bit heavy-handed with the religious overtone, but really, that stuff took a backseat to the friendship of these guys. Their relationship here, was the point of the movie. Not the Jesus!
The movie takes place over the course of a single weekend, maybe longer, 3 or 4 days. But with everything these characters go through, it seems more like a month! I mean that in a good way!
Well, looks like I might be the only person in the world who's going to defend this movie! Here goes...
I first saw this back in the mid 90's when I was a teenager myself. I fell asleep on the couch watching TV one night and this movie came on around 2am. It was one of those movies that you wouldn't normally be into, but you sit and watch 5 minutes, then you want to see the next 10 minutes, and the next, and so on. Anyway, I woke up in the middle of the movie and for some reason I cant explain, I was captivated by it! (Since then, I have watched the movie in it's entirety a few times!)It's about these 2 guys, Phil, a suicidal teen junkie, and Dumar, a former musician with a history of depression, though he seems to have moved past it. They recognize something in each other, and a friendship forms between them.
Before I go any further with the plot, let me just acknowledge some of what other reviews have said about the movie; Yes, the production values are pretty terrible. It looks like somebody filmed this with an old VHS camcorder or something! Looking back now, I think maybe that was why I was so drawn to the movie when I first saw it. It just looked so different from everything else on TV then, I had to see how it ended! The acting is passable, save for Ami Dolenz's performance. *minor spoiler here* There is a scene early in the movie where she commits suicide in the bathroom of some night club. The scene basically serves as a jumping-off-point for Phil and Dumar's friendship, in that, it succeeds, but the scene itself, while meant to be dramatic and tragic, comes off as more unintentionally comical.
Phil and Dumar's friendship is what drives everything GOOD about this movie! Consciously, Phil seems to think suicide is a cool thing to do and that it must take a lot of courage to go through with it. But deep down, sub-consciously, he wants to live, so he spends a lot of time grilling Dumar about his past and what his beliefs are about life, death, God, etc... Dumar doesn't give him much at first, after all he doesn't know this guy well enough to trust him with his deepest feelings about those subjects. But as time goes on, he does share with Phil more and more about his past. The friendship between them, how it began and how it progressed felt very organic. That aspect was very well written in my opinion! The end, as other reviewers have mentioned, does get a bit heavy-handed with the religious overtone, but really, that stuff took a backseat to the friendship of these guys. Their relationship here, was the point of the movie. Not the Jesus!
The movie takes place over the course of a single weekend, maybe longer, 3 or 4 days. But with everything these characters go through, it seems more like a month! I mean that in a good way!