BOOGIE NIGHTS

BOOGIE NIGHTS 

Boogie Nights: 8.5/10 

There was so much going on in this film and so many subplots that it makes it difficult to review. On the surface this film is about the pornography business and the people involved in it, but I think deep down inside this film is about identity. Self-identity and the way others identify you. I appreciated the films raw honesty, in the way it portrayed a taboo subject and hit it from a multitude of different angles. We often think of women who get wrapped up in this world as young girls who suffered from a life of neglectful and maybe abusive parents, but we often don't grant the same liberty to men. We instead picture horny guys who simply were dying to be in the business since they reached puberty, and thumbs up to the film for portraying men who got wrapped up in the business in the same way that we often picture how women did. Choices have a lot to do with the way life works out, and I always identify with the character who is self aware of his/her own mistakes and tries to correct them as best they can, but can't seem to catch a break. I felt empathy for Buck Swope, but I didn't feel it for Amber Waves. Swope honestly wanted to get out of the business and better himself and his life. The scene with the loaner at the bank, then mixed in with what happens at the Donut shop, really illustrates just how screwed and messed up this life can be. You try and do the right thing, the right way and it produces nothing. Do something the wrong way, it produces success. We don't like to think life works that way and we pretend that it doesn't. Sometimes it does though, and I appreciate the film's honesty in portraying that.

The examination and study of being judgmental is hit hard and fast throughout the entire film. So hard and so fast that you don't get a chance to take it in absorb it and really think about it until the film is over. Where is the line drawn, if it even is? For some people they judge every little thing about you. You can do no right. For other people, they judge nothing. You can do no wrong. For the rest of us, it's somewhere in the middle. Who do you feel bad for? Who creates a feeling of empathy or sympathy? Who do you not feel bad for? Who creates a feeling of, "They got what they deserved?" Who do you have no idea how to feel about?

The ending of the film was quite revealing as well, and adds to my statement that the film was about identity. I love the way the scene was set up and the visuals of it. It left you guessing for quite sometime before it revealed whether we were looking at Eddie Adams or Dirk Diggler on the screen. The choice of self-identity, based primarily if not solely on how others identified him.

Great cast, not a weak performance out of the entire cast. Great story, or better put great stories. There is so much more I could say about this film and the characters in it. I mean each character I could write at least a half a page on. I have so much more I could say about this film.

My only reason for not rating it higher is because I felt that there was too much going on at once and I feel that the film would have been a bit stronger with a few less characters and stronger focus on certain ones. I would have liked to have seen more development and transition for some of the characters.

Overall though, good movie. I'll probably watch it a few more times and try and pick up on things that I probably missed the first time around.