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Rating:  - We're all "Barflys" at some point in life.
Classic Mickey Roarke and more exhausting than Leaving Las Vegas, however I never tire of watching this movie. I've never ventured into the seediest bars in LA, but I would have bought Mickey Roarke a few cocktails.
Rating:  - When you're a drunk you're a drunk
Being a sloopy,falling down drunk ain't pretty...There isn't any romance to it at all..Most of the This-is-what-I-do-every-day-of-my-life-drunks that I have ever encountered are NOT wannabe poets..No..they are failed human beings,alcohol addicts with about as much poetry in them as an iguana..they don't brush thier teeth,they seldom change thier underwear,they smell stale,old,gin-soaked,cigarette stinky...sometimes they go for days with vomit on thier shirtfronts..The men seldom-if ever-land gals who look even remotely like Faye Dunaway..more often than not female drunks are missing teeth,have tattoos in all the wrong places,have bar-fight scars,and are nasty,mean spirited bottom feeders.."Barfly",on the other hand,almost makes being a drunk palatable,which,of course is a pity..Go ask the folks who attend AA meetings if being a mickey Rourke-like drunk is realistic..Sure,he has the scrungy look down pat,but he has this same look in a lot of his films..He looked as scrungy in"Angel Heart",and that flick had nothing whatsoever to do with drinking..Go ask the AA meeting folks if being a failed poet makes one a drunk...for that matter go ask the AA meeting folks what sort of poetry most drunks come up with..Usually it begins with the line;
"There was a young lady from Nantucket"...and goes downhill from there...In"Barfly"the mickey Rourke drunk gets to bed Faye Dunaway,and exchange fisticuffs with Frank Stallone(Sly Stone's less talented brother),but mostly he gets to drink,slobber,and feel sorry for himself,which is about the only really accurate aspect of this film...
Rating: - When will a new Special Edition be released?
I had this on order with Amazon when they still showed it as being in stock; they kept putting it on backorder and then finally all record of it disappeared from my order just like the DVD Boomerang did. Why does Amazon do this? I remember seeing this movie on HBO or Showtime years ago and rate the movie a "5", not the DVD.
Rating:  - Inside the tight little world of drunk
In Rumblefish, Mickey Rourke was Motorcycle Boy,
too smart and sensitive for someone that tough.
This time, he's way too tough for someone that
smart and sensitive. The screenplay by Charles
Bukowski, who was at that time the world's most
famous unknown writer, is a frighteningly naturalistic
look into the world of living to drink. Bukowski
came by his knowledge honestly and this is
acknowledged to be his autobiography.
The movie is as comic as it is realistic and
it's beautifully supported by the direction of
Barbet Schroeder and the setst of Bob Ziembicki.
The most distracting oddity is Rourke's performance.
Sometimes alive and insightful, he occasionally
slips into a W.C. Fields drawl and a penguin-like
posture. Fay Dunaway and the rest of the cast
have a less labored touch. The myth of Bukowski
survives this movie intact and magnified. Barfly
is beautiful, funny, intelligent and laced with
just the right amount of darkness.
--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE
and the forthcoming novel bang-BANG from Kunati Books
Rating: - A staggering good time
Who but Mickey Rourke could adequately portray a character based on the supremely inimitable Charles Bukowski? In a film that is both dingy and bright, Rourke staggers from the screen a pickled genius and gives a stellar performance as the hard-drinking, alley-brawling, pickup line-snarling Henry.
The fact is, you get the sense that Rourke is not acting at all. He is the reckless but generally happy drunk with a flair for words floating around in the alcoholic foam. You can smell the boozy breath and unwashed clothes as he staggers from bar to bar, a man at peace with this misspent life. Almost at peace, anyway. Because Henry, like Bukowski, has an enormous talent for prose that just won't float away on river of booze.
Henry's life is only mildly altered by the appearance of Wanda, a fellow drinker living on the ragged edge between drunkeness and sobriety. She has a job, after all, and that sets her apart from the other barflies, who are afforded the luxery of running the bars all hours of all days. Faye Dunaway is amazing in this movie. Her beauty is not vanquished in the role, but is rubbed away some as if by the eraser of hard years and hard living. She is as devoted to Henry as she is to her alcoholism. And when a stranger from beyond their world, a bright and clean stranger from the glitzy universe of publishing comes among them, Wanda is territorial and threatened. Henry, on the other hand, is bemused and only vaguely flattered that someone has expressed an interest in his literature. He dreams, not of bestsellers lists and fancy dinners, but of a quick buck to sustain the lifestyle with which he has become quite comfortable.
"Barfly" teaches a great lesson about alcoholics. They are not all drunk beyond intellect and blindly resigned to the lifestyle of liquor. Many possess talents that sober men only dream of. And many would not jump into the opulence and safety of the sober word if given the opportunity. Some of these great drinkers are quite content down there in the mud and beer, with their genius tucked away some place secret, like something stashed in a battered knapsack.
"Barfly" is a weaving, grungy look at genius, at love, and at the strange social interactions among those that reside in what some mistakenly refer to as the subculture.
See this movie at once. Just be sure not to drive or operate heavy machinery at the same time.
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