Barfly

I came across this movie on HBO one night and like any great movie I was immediately hooked by it. I could tell right away that this movie had a strange artistic appeal to it. The movie is strange, funny, and weird. In one scene Henry (Mickey Rourke) collects 500$ from a rich woman he meets. He then takes it immediately to his flea bag appartment along with a bottle of liquor. He wakes up his girlfriend (Faye Dunnaway)and from out of her slumber they begin to drink. Henry manages to stab a man, get a girlfriend, have a wealthy mistress, be a bar room fighter, and o yeah, a poet. Overall this is a gritty movie about the ups and downs of a poet who insists to live in squalor and would'nt have it any other way.

Faye Dunaway's best work since Network! She really nailed this role. Mickey Rourke was superb, so sleazy you could almost smell him through the screen. His character's way of speaking and walking were such affectations that I would normally consider overacting, but here they were just right.

I've seen this movie several times... I really enjoy it, even though it centers around the lives of two wretched drunks (played by Rourke and Dunaway) who, if you met them in real life, would probably frighten you to death.

Though both of them are wretched souls indeed, there is nevertheless enough compassion, wisdom, and charm emanating from both of them to make them actually likeable screen characters. And you can't help but do a mental "double take" on many of the lines of dialogue: Rourke's character, with a sort of "beat" hipness, really makes you think about your own life and your own values.

The only flaw I could find was that, considering the incredible amount of drinking that is depicted, I felt it would have been more realistic to show Henry and Wanda having more horrible hangovers, maybe even with frequent vomiting attacks. But then again, maybe these are two people who really know how to hold their liquor. See it, and decide for yourself!

P.S.: NOT recommended that you watch this film if you are on the wagon and trying to stay on it!!

"Barfly" was a fairly successful film when it was released and garnered generally favorable reviews. Roger Ebert gave it four out of four, and along with "Angel Heart," it helped solidify 1987 as the Year of Mickey Rourke.

However, almost twenty years later it isn't talked so much about anymore, and I feel it deserves to be. Rourke gives one of his finest performances as Henry, a loner who walks hunched over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Henry works at a bar as a runner - delivering orders and such. But he's always getting into drunken brawls with the bartender, usually losing.

One day Henry's life takes a turn when he meets a downtrodden woman (Faye Dunaway) and they embark on a relationship.

"Barfly" is a great film. Rourke was vocal later on in his career about his dislike of director Barbet Schroeder, but Schroeder's direction is part of what makes this film so good.

However, the absolute best aspect of the movie is Rourke's performance. Embodying the late writer Charles Bukowski (whose work this was based upon, and who had a brief cameo in the film), Rourke is unrecognizable - like Billy Bob Thornton in "Sling Blade," his entire demeanor and physicality seems to change.

I highly recommend "Barfly" - it's funny, dark, witty, touching and downright enjoyable. One of the best films of the '80s.

I've seen too many movies where one shocked character asks a character who's done something dangerous, "Are you crazy?", but I don't think I've ever heard a character just flatly say "yes," and as casually as Mickey Rourke says it. It's a small moment in a film that has many good small details, but it stuck out.

Barfly hasn't much of a story, instead following one drunken man as he walks and drinks, staggering through life. He's not partying, like in comedies that involve characters abusing alcohol, but neither does he seem to be drinking himself to death, like Nicolas Cage's character in Leaving Las Vegas. It's an interesting and less expected look at alcohol dependency, and the way drinking a lot seemingly every day ultimately changes one's life, usually for the worse, and occasionally for the better (only really in brief spurts for the latter).

But Rourke's character continues to fight through life. He's not likable, but he's interesting. He's a victim to a compulsion for continual drinking, but he doesn't act like a victim, and sometimes it feels like he wants to do what he does. How much agency he has and how much he's subserviant to liquor is interesting to think about.

Mickey Rourke can act. Easy pick, but I remember The Wrestler impressing me the most. Barfly is another performance of his where his physicality is fascinating and admirably committed. I think it's the second-best performance I've seen of his. I've known some kinda drunks in my time and I don't think the mannerisms and the way he moves around a room are too far off the truth. This is not a fun drunk, but neither is it a Leaving Las Vegas "I want death now" drunk. It's something new, and I liked that.

Faye Dunaway is good, I think, but I'll be honest... I'm not sure how credible she is, because I just haven't seen women of that age in that state. She might look a bit too pretty, too, contrasting against Mickey Rourke who looks consistently rough and schlubby throughout in a way I quite respected.

What we have is a sluggish character study of a film, but that central character is good, and Rourke's performance is excellent. Those qualities make Barfly more than worth devoting 100 minutes.