Main Cast: Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, James LeGros, Heather Graham, James Remar
Release Year: 1989
Country: US
Run Time: 100 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
The operative word in Drugstore Cowboy is "drug". Matt Dillon plays the leader of a group of dopeheads who wander around the country robbing pharmacies to feed their habits. Dillon's chums include doltish James Le Gros and teen-age junkie Heather Graham; also along for the ride is Dillon's wife Kelly Lynch. Their nemesis is cop James Remar, whom Dillon takes perverse delight in humiliating. When one of the young addicts dies of an overdose, it promps Dillon to try to go straight, a task complicated by wife Lynch's determination to stay high and by the corrupting presence of an ex-priest, played by Naked Lunch author William Burroughs. Drugstore Cowboy was director Gus Van Sant's breakthrough picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Like the best outlaw movies (Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider), director Gus Van Sant's breakthrough sophomore film seeks neither to legitimate the junkie's life nor to moralize against it. The film avoids glib portrayals of its "cowboys" as fun-loving free-spirits; indeed, they're anything but free. Though it paints a corrosive picture of drug abuse, Cowboy also shows the itinerant abusers as real people and not caricatured sociopaths. Van Sant's and Daniel Yost's adaptation of the unpublished memoir of James Fogle -- who served a 22-year sentence for similar crimes -- no doubt adds to the unique realism of the film. Matt Dillon's career was revitalized by his laconic, charismatic, and sad performance as the gang's leader, and the young Heather Graham also garnered notice for her memorable performance as the junkie clan's newest inductee. Beat author William S. Burroughs even turns up for a particularly disturbing cameo. Van Sant presents the group as a monumentally dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless: They care about each other, and we grow to care about them. Drugstore Cowboy is a rare film that takes on a potentially loaded topic and addresses it with originality, sentiment, and real power. ~ Matthew Doberman, All Movie Guide
William S. Burroughs - Tom the Priest; Max Perlich - David; Ted D'Arms - Neighbor Man; Eric Hull - Druggist; Ray Monge - Accomplice; Robert Lee Pitchlynn - Hotel Clerk; Beah Richards - Drug Counselor; Stephen Rutledge - Motel Manager; Grace Zabriskie - Bob's Mother; Michael Parker - Crying Boy; George Catalano - Trousinski; John Kelly - Cop
Credit
Eve Cauley - Art Director, Richard Pagano - Casting, Sharon Bialy - Casting, Karen Murphy - Co-producer, Nick Wechsler - Co-producer, Beatrix Aruna Pasztor - Costume Designer, Gus Van Sant - Director, Mary Bauer - Editor, Curtiss Clayton - Editor, Cary Brokaw - Executive Producer, Elliot Goldenthal - Composer (Music Score), David Brisbin - Production Designer, Robert Yeoman - Cinematographer, Karen Koch - Production Manager, Margaret Goldsmith - Set Designer, Gus Van Sant - Screenwriter, Dan Yost - Screenwriter, James Fogle - Book Author
Drugstore Cowboy was listed on the top ten list of both Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert for films released in 1989. The film was very well-received critically.
The story follows Bob Hughes (Matt Dillon) and his "family" of drug addicts as they travel across the US Pacific Northwest in the early 1970s, supporting their habit by robbing pharmacies and hospitals. A highlight of the film is an appearance by recovering addict William S. Burroughs as Tom, a defrocked priest who lectures Bob on the dangers of temptation. After a tragedy strikes the "family", Bob decides to try to "go straight," but finds that there is more to extricating himself from the drug user's lifestyle than just giving up drugs.
The screenplay by Van Sant and Yost is based on the novel by James Fogle. The novel was published in 1990 (ISBN 0-385-30224-X) Drugstore Cowboy, by which time Fogle was released from prison - Fogle, like the characters in his story, was a long-time drug user and dealer.
