Review of Less Than Zero (1987) by Adam D — 14 Sep 2015

This is one of those rare occurrences where the performances from the actors are better than the actual film itself as a whole. Don't get me wrong, this is a good movie and I recommend that you give it a watch primarily because of the wonderful message it hopes to convey concerning friendship and drug addiction.

However, I cannot say that this was a great film because of a few narrative issues, occasional spots of questionable dialogue, and slight lack of character development. In a nutshell, the story revolves around 3 friends who graduated high school together.

It fast forwards 6 months after the graduation, and Andrew McCarthy's character comes home to visit his friends only to find that his best friend Julian (masterfully played by Robert Downey, Jr.) has slipped into a tragic lifestyle of drug addiction, financial debt, and sad desperation.

He does everyone in his power to maintain the friendship and get him back on track. James Spader (aka Ultron), as always, plays a villain this time in the form of an angry drug dealer and Jami Gertz plays the female friend of the group who watched over Julian while McCarthy's character was away.

This movie has a lot of heart and the intentions behind it were certainly good. However, I think the 90-ish minute run-time really kept this film from allowing the audience to fully examine how Julian spiraled down into such a sad road in life.

Also...am I supposed to believe that these characters matured so much and that Julian lost all his money and became an addict all within 6 months? Wouldn't they have spent their 3-month Summer together before leaving for college? Why do they all act like it has been ages since they last saw one another and they are trying to rekindle their friendships like old times? This story would have been wonderful and far more believable if they would have fast forwarded 1 or 2 years ahead.

The short run-time and lack of time passing really bothered me. But I gotta say, Robert Downey, Jr. gave one of the best performances of his career here and it is highly underrated because he was very believable.

No wonder he soon got nominated for Chaplin 5 years later. Ironically, this film was made while Downey, Jr. was actually struggling with drug addiction. So, I suppose the role was rather relate-able to him at the time.

Overall, give this film a watch. I found it to be good, but not as great as it had the potential to become.