The film follows a young man who is looking for a way out of his troubled life, or so he thinks, that he caused himself. Once his mother calls him out on it he splits and meets an Adult film producer and director by the name of Jack Horner. From there on we are brought into a fantastic story with several characters involved. That is what makes this movie so great, there are so many characters in this film and each one has their problems and some of the problems and very serious ones, which are the problems that bring out the drama in this picture. Now, there is so much going on in this story that I can't get into every detail, but if I do some spoilers might come out, so that's okay.
But, what I will discuss is that cast who all do a fantastic job especially three of them, Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, and Julianne Moore. Mark Wahlberg plays the lead in this film, he has two names, Eddie Adams, his real name and Dirk Diggler, his stage name. This film was probably his breakout film because he delivers such an electrified performance from beginning to end, although some of the scenes had to be awkward to film. Burt Reynolds plays the Adult film director, Jack Horner, who discovers the new found sensation. Reynolds really controls the movie the majority of the time, every time he is on screen with anybody he controls it, which probably got him nominated for an Oscar. Julianne Moore plays Amber Waves, an actress in the industry, and she too delivers in every scene because she has several scenes that involve mixed emotions. She too was nominated for an Oscar. The rest of the all-star cast consist of Luis Guzman, John C. Reilly, Don Cheadle, Heather Graham, William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Thomas Jane, Philip Baker Hall, and Alfred Molina. Not all of these are big parts, but they affect the film in some way and each and every actor gives us everything they got in their performances and they help the film flow well.
The big thing that makes this movie so great is the writing by director Paul Thomas Anderson, who wrote one fantastic screenplay. This film is actually based on a short film of his he made back in 1988, he just did a great job on expanding it. There is a lot of perfectly written dialog in the film and he intentionally makes some of it awkward, which is what we would expect in some of the scenes. The drama that he brought to the screen is also wonderful and he does this with a lot of long cuts, which are great! The opening of the film is a near four minutes long without a single cut, along with two other scenes in particular that were shot the same way, one in particular involves William H. Macy's character about halfway through the movie. A great and dramatic scene! There is also one sequence about two hours in that is very intense.
The film also looks great with beautiful cinematography and, in my opinion, Oscar worthy editing, but it didn't get nominated. The last thing that makes this film a great film, and the second best film of 1997 behind Titanic and just in front of Good Will Hunting, is the character development. Every character in this film evolves in someway, they rise and fall or start from the top and fall and have to start all over for one reason or another. This is a film that is not well known to many because of the subject matter, but I assure you it tells a great story that will have you hooked from the opening shot. Characters rise from the bottom or they fall from top because of captivating performances, wonderful writing, fantastic directing, and interesting editing with long uncut scenes. If you haven't seen it I urge you to.
4/4 Stars
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