utterly random movie of the week #1

The Boost ('88)

Do you want to know one of the world's Best Kept Secrets?

James Woods is "The Man". Inverted commas and Captial letters are intentional and required.

De Niro, Pacino, Hoffman, Woods. I am not joking.

Whilst Woods never received the level of acclaim of those other guys, he is in the same class.

Woods always brings something new to the table. And something that only HE could bring. His performances are filled with energy, passion and surprise. I never know what expect from him. Have you seen Once Upon A Time In America? His performance is the stand out. Yes, over De Niro's.

That he struggles to get the same class of roles in his later years is a darn shame, as he is an actor I dearly miss from the screen. I have not watched his show Shark (I don't think it has aired on Australian TV), but I'm sure it is a cut above the normal fare due to his presence alone.

And here we have The Boost, a little known film from Sea of Love director Harold Becker, about the downward spiral of a man addicted to excess. Sean Young plays his loyal to a fault wife, and you know what? Even when Woods' character is acting like a complete dope we STILL understand why she sticks by him. Lenny (Woods) is a shonkster salesman selling tax schemes across Los Angeles for oodles of money, until a tax law is changed and he hits rock bottom, replacing the rush of success with the rush of cocaine.

What happens next is a virtuoso display of the effects of drug addiction. There is a scene where Lenny and his wife take 2 potential investors out for dinner, and Lenny cannot secure the table he requested the night before, and he basically freaks out on coke, and what we are seeing is not just an actor given an excuse to be the fool, but a deeply flawed man venting out his insecurities on everyone but himself.

What else can I say? Seek it out. Would make a good double feature with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ('97)