Drugstore Cowboy

Directed by Gus Van Sant, Drugstore Cowboy details the lackadaisical exploits of a junkie (Matt Dillon’s Bob) and his crew (Kelly Lynch’s Dianne, James Le Gros’ Rick, and Heather Graham’s Nadine). Filmmaker Van Sant, armed with his and Daniel Yost’s screenplay, delivers a slow-moving and perpetually uninvolving drama that contains few (if any) attributes designed to capture and sustain the viewer’s interest, and it’s clear, certainly, that the picture’s arms-length atmosphere is compounded by its aimless, momentum-free narrative and assortment of unlikable (and far-from-sympathetic) central characters. There’s little doubt, too, that Drugstore Cowboy‘s failure can be attributed to Van Sant’s recurring emphasis on eye-rollingly pretentious bits of style, and while the picture admittedly does contain a very small handful of compelling sequences, the whole thing builds towards an anticlimactic (and curiously didactic) third act that couldn’t possibly be less satisfying (or more tiresome) – with the end result a fairly palpable misfire that squanders the efforts of its decidedly talented cast.

*1/2 out of ****