Review of Drugstore Cowboy (1989) by Jef F — 21 Nov 2007

Like 'Withnail and I' before it Drugstore Cowboy is a film set in the past without ever being about the past. It's 1971 but you'd hardly know, were it not for the odd pair of dodgy chequered flairs that Matt Dillon's Bob adorns when he can't find anything else to wear.

Bob's a junkie who loves the whole lifestyle. He runs around with a crew that comprises of Dianne (Kelly Lynch), Rick (James Le Gros) & Nadine (a delightful looking Heather Graham). They are subtly attired too, only the odd short skirt or knee high boot concedes to a time implied to be not that much different to any other. And that's the steal; Bob's no ordinary junkie. He and his crew scoot around Oregon robbing drugstores and getting high with only James Remar's cop Gentry there to get in the way. Well, him and the small matter of a hat placed woefully on the end of a bed. Bob is superstitious you see, so when Nadine suggests they might like to buy a dog Dianne gets to fill us in on an incident past involving a puppy called 'Panda' that led the cops straight to her and Bob ending them both up in jail. In fact, the mere mention of a dog has landed them with a three day hex and as a consequence they have to lay low for a while.

"Alright.. well, now we're on the subject are there any other stupid things we aren't supposed to mention that will effect our future?" requests a faintly perturbed Rick.

"As a matter of fact there are." retorts a sagacious Bob.

It is exchanges like this - great one liners - that make this film so watchable. Dillon gives the performance of his life as the lost junkie simultaneously getting off on his lifestyle and perhaps realising that he's on a trip that is doomed to end somewhere bad. And it does, all rather abruptly, paving the way for the most darkly comic sequence of events in the whole film culminating in our crew having to extricate a dead body from the midst of a sheriff's convention (no less!). It's the cue for Bob to 'get out' ,which he very much does and from here on in the film reflects the sobriety and resulting ennui that becomes part of his new life back home. A few more twists and turns follow but like Bob's fun the party is over and you're left yearning for a return to the witty dialogue and exciting adventure that so typified the first two thirds of the film. But then, I guess that's the point.