Bright Lights Big City
Michael J. Fox certainly did an above average job of establishing himself as a master of light comedy fare, hitting the jackpot with Back To The Future using a persona that he had honed to a fine edge as Alex Keaton on Family Ties: an overwrought and continuously exasperated young man who is always at the end of his rope and on his last nerve and is utterly hilarious to watch as he rants and raves about whatever is bothering him at that given moment. With his Marty McFly locked in as one of the most beloved movie characters of the 1980s, Fox then set his sights on slightly reshaping his image into that of the quintessential big city corporate yuppie, scoring a minor hit with Secret Of My Success and then making the major mistake of not only venturing into dramas, but also obviously giving some thought that he might just win an Oscar for doing so, leading to this 1988 release that at first glance appears to be a companion piece to Less Than Zero with its cautionary tale about the perils of drug addiction, but is really just an empty piece with no real story, no dramatic conflict and barely anything even resembling a climax or real ending at all. As for Fox himself, playing a guy with a severe cocaine addiction (and drinking alcohol as if Prohibition is right around the corner), he spends every single scene looking and acting like he’s about to completely collapse and fall flat on his face, making one wonder how long it will be until a crew member comes on camera and carries him off the set. That along with some profuse sweating and doing his patented Parkinsons head movements after he snorts some good blow constitutes the majority of his performance range here. But the script and story (reputedly an autobiographical piece by writer Jay McInerney) is really so flat and uninvolving that the cocaine angle becomes almost incidental, acting as a means to an end to have Fox start slacking off in the workplace, an uppity NYC fashion rag (supposedly a spoof / hatchet job of the real life New Yorker magazine) where he acts as a literal fact checker and editor, apparently being handed poorly written stories to begin with and having to research the writer’s lies so that the magazine’s pristine reputation for truth remains intact, a march for integrity which naturally Fox’s cocaine habit completely derails, aging his boss (Francis Sternhagen) about 10 more years which she’d rather have back instead of having to deal with this cokehead employee and REALLY pissing off the magazine’s owner (John Houseman doing his best impersonation of a totem pole) which results in Fox finally getting shitcanned about halfway through the movie (the absolute worst thing that actually happens to him) even as it frees the movie from the terrible monotony of the constant workplace scenes that go nowhere and detract from the supposed fun of the nightclub / partying scenes (of which there are too few of those). Getting fired does earn him a dinner date with a sympathetic yet desperate former co worker (80s character acting stalwart Swoosie Kurtz) who showers him with food, wine and Valium, but when Fox goes for the requisite rape attempt, she stops him cold and makes it clear to Michael J. that she’d rather play Mommy Mommy with him, cradling his head and trying to get him to breastfeed off her, an offer that sends Fox running out the door with a fury that would make Jesse Owens wince. The movie starts with some promise as Fox is shown gawking over a beautiful, baldheaded female bartender at a fancy club before depositing himself at his workstation and sending the pacing into slow motion. Indeed, for such a cocaine fueled premise, the slow pace, stagnant scenes that threaten to cross the line into unintentional comedy and lack of any sort of paranoia or tension whatsoever makes one really wonder if the director (James Bridges) has ever even SNORTED cocaine himself in his entire life, using a Sidney Lumet type of directing style rather than the rollercoaster ride of craziness that an out of control cokehead lifestyle would require being portrayed as, turning Fox into a character trapped completely in his own little bubble for whom it becomes almost impossible for the viewer to relate to, especially when it comes to his obsession with a so called “Coma Baby” that he’s been reading about in the newspapers, leading to an ill advised (and only) attempt at surrealism where Fox fantasizes about engaging in conversation with a bizarre looking puppet meant to be The Coma Baby. Fox does have his own Mommy issues since his own mother (played by underrated two time Oscar winner Dianne Wiest, coming right off the success of Lost Boys) had died from cancer, but not before teasing her son about his past sexual conquests and likening cancer pain to birthing pains. There is a slight effort to bring some life to the movie in the form of Kiefer Sutherland (also coming off the triumph of Lost Boys) as Fox’s best friend and wingman for his limited nightlife, with the most interesting contrast coming in just how much Kiefer’s character is the polar opposite of Fox’s, doing the same drugs as Fox but also seemingly having the time of his life in doing so while maintaining a totally stable life and career at the same time, as Kiefer at least brings some good cheer to the proceedings and apparently gets laid left and right (unlike Fox who has to settle for being matched up with Swoosie Kurtz), finally being a nice enough friend to set Fox up on a date with his cousin played by Fox’s future real life wife Tracy Pollan, leading to the film’s most audacious conceit where a character played by Michael J. Fox’s future real life wife sprinkles some magical fairy dust over his head and makes him want to give up snorting cocaine (at least as long as she’s around him in person). Rounding out the cast is William Hickey in a weird cameo as a street dealer who cuts a side deal with Fox to sell him a ferret that leads to an unfunny “revenge” scene where Fox and Kiefer (who has far more to lose in doing so at this point) wind up breaking and entering into Fox’s former workplace in order to set the animal loose on the premises, the legendary Jason Robards in what is certainly NOT one of his finest hours essaying the role of a drunken writer at the magazine who comes across as being almost totally incoherent rather than funny and laconic (which might explain why Robards’ name was taken off the film entirely which results in his appearance being unbilled) and last (and certainly least), Phoebe Cates as Fox’s estranged wife (and guilty as charged perpetrator of all of his personal woes), a nothing role complete with a nothing performance by the otherwise gorgeous Cates as a non human, completely superficial supermodel whom as it turned out ditched her marriage to Michael J. specifically because her supermodel career was taking off while he still worked as a fact checker at a lowly media publication, leading to an hilarious scene where Fox has a sudden psychic premonition as to where she happens to be at that exact moment (and he turns out to be right), leading to Fox going on a sudden stalker binge until she finally chooses to notice his presence and acknowledges him in the same way that she would a long lost gay male passing acquaintance (no wonder he’s on coke). The storyline contains so little forward momentum that when Fox suddenly encounters his long lost brother (Charlie Schlatter) who has come there to remind him all about how their mother is dead, the script resorts to giving us a big chase scene (as Fox runs for his life from his teenage sibling) and we get the most exciting, action packed, well shot sequence in the whole movie. Usually, these type of narcotic derived cautionary tales feature some sort of terrible, life changing event that winds up scaring everybody straight (think Downey’s OD demise in Less Than Zero), but here, we get Fox suffering from a mere nosebleed in the bathroom, leading to him going out to buy a loaf of bread and now he’s fixed just like that in a so called drug movie where the flashiest thing about it is the title itself, when a much better (but less commercial) title would have been Guy With Coke Habit Loses His Job Because He Can’t Focus On His Work…
2/10