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One of the best films i have seen

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

It's easy to hate Michael J. Fox's "Gee Whiz Doc! I dropped the coke in the toilet!" performance but please consider all the other serious contenders for movie moronistocracy here. Keifer is SUPPOSED to be playing a successful, EDUCATED (if decadent) Ivy league Preppie, not a scuzzy New Jersey druggie. His accent veers wildly from Brooklyn Paluka to Malibu surfer. Frances Sternhagen spits out every line with the a cartoonish venom of a spinster schoolmarm and Swoozy Kurtz is positively motherly as his long-suffering, over-concerned colleague (who he makes a pass at in the book but here she seems to be more interested than he is for presumably obvious reasons). Jason Robards makes a wasted (and I do mean wasted) cameo as a slurry by-the-numbers drunk. Even John Houseman looks disoriented and uncomfortable in his role as the boss editor. But the worst is Fox's real-life wife Tracy Pollan. Supposed to be the bookish, intellectual cousin of Sutherland's character, she is a blonde bobblehead indistinguishable from the other blonde bobbleheads who populate the nightclub scenes. The only thing remotely watchable in this movie (mesmerizing actually) is Fox's hand. He rubs his face, bites his nail, scratches his chin and when it gets wrapped it a bandage following a ferret bite (! don't ask), then the hand really starts working overtime. At least it helps pass the 2 hours because there is nothing else going on in this star-studded fiasco. And yes, the book is brilliant. Go read the book instead.

I won't bother with recounting the plot--plenty of others here have done that--but I will give some thoughts from the perspective of a 40-something who remembers fondly the movie and the times from whence it came.I remember hating this movie when I first saw it back in the day. I'd read half the novel and hated that too. My main memory of both of them, oddly enough, was the Coma Baby. It features heavily in the book but somewhat less so in the movie.Watching it again so many years later and so many years out from the 80s, I was surprised to find myself enjoying it. Perhaps it was a nostalgia thing. My mind was certainly flooding with associated memories. 1988 was the year I finished high school. I was soon to leave my little red-neck country town and move to the big smoke where a whole new life would begin (and there have been at least three more since then!).Some positives: I'm a huge Donald Fagen/Steely Dan fan, so Fagen's soundtrack was appreciated. It doesn't really sound like his regular stuff (until the very end), and was, frankly, often quite cheesy and even out of place at times. But I convinced myself I liked it. Other Fagen fans may also. The movie really grabs the 80s very effectively. Nightclubs, hair, blow, the whole bit. There is a surprising appearance from the wonderful Jason Robards which, shamefully, is uncredited according to IMDb. Considering the size of his role this is kind of odd.Negatives: Phoebe Cates seemed completely unconvincing as a model and Michael J. Fox was completely unconvincing as a...sorry, but, hey...as a grown-up. He's never really any different from how he was in Back to the Future or even Family Ties. He's still all got up in jeans and a suit jacket, skipping all over the place, and gulping, "Shucks" (at least seemingly). No disrespect to the guy. Just that this movie reminds that he was never so well suited to anything with pretensions to being serious. And that last point sums up the problems with this film: it eventually becomes apparent that the movie is trying to be taken seriously. It just doesn't work though. A pretentious novel as starting place doesn't help. Ham acting and cheese dialog don't help none neither.Still, an enjoyable time capsule. Kiefer does OK as wise-a** friend. The wonderful Frances Sternhagen, an appearance from the then-soon-to-be-late John Houseman, and even the magnificent William Hickey. Tracy Pollan is gorgeous and Swoosie Kurtz is her usual charming self. The ending is quite poignant, featuring Dianne Wiest, but isn't enough to really justify getting there.If you're 40-something, watch this with ice cream and snacks on a lazy weekday evening. If you're younger or older than that...probably don't bother, coz it ain't really that great.

I was fooled by comments here into watching this one. It is, in a sense, all flashback without an establishing context. We don't learn until the end that much of Fox's problem results from his mother's death. The other reason -- the 'divorce' -- is made much of but no context for that is established. So -- he drinks, snorts, and fails in his job as a fact-checker for a Vanity Fair type of magazine. And -- so what? The motivation seems just to be self-destruction, and that is not particularly interesting. I suppose the Robards character (like the coma baby) is a 'reflector' of the main character. But the Robards character seems actually to have had a life at some point in the distant past. What is he doing now? Is he still holding down a job? Why was Fox's character broke at some points yet affluent at others? Can anyone drink vodka all day, snort, and still function? His treatment of his brother was not only nasty, but unmotivated. What was the point of the ferret episode? The main character's equation of his friend and ex-wife at the end was incomprehensible. This is an incoherent ramble. No story. Tedious and radically un-involving.

Jay McInerney's story of a young man's broken life, and his struggle to become somebody, would probably have made better reading than viewing. Director James Bridges finds it hard to give the movie any depth, and the overall plot lacks direction. However, "Bright Lights, Big City" is observant, without ever being powerfully moving. Michael J. Fox does well with the character of Jamie Conway, making him quite believable and easy to identify with. Support comes from Kiefer Sutherland, Phoebe Cates and Swoosie Kurtz.Ending without really resolving itself, this is no must see film, but it's worth a look. Read the book!Wednesday, February 19, 1992 - Video