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Matt Dillon delivers one of the best performances of his career in Drugstore Cowboy, a gritty film about the real life of junkies. There is heavy drug content in this film, but in no way is the drug life glorified. We see the more realistic life of drugs on the streets, which is probably what makes this such an aesthetically unpleasing film. No one in the movie looks good, it has just about as much ugliness as a spectacularly ugly movie like Buffalo '66, which enhances the realism of the film. Much of the film is shot in a documentary style, giving it a gritty, realistic feel, almost like a twisted home movie. Dillon plays the part of Bob, a young junkie in the early 1970s who goes around with his group of friends breaking into pharmacies and drug stores and stealing random bottles of prescription bottles looking for their next high. The movie starts at the end of the story, with Bob riding in an ambulance and telling us the story of how he got there, but has the pleasing distinction of not leading you exactly to where you knew you were going to be. Even by showing the end of the story there is nothing given away. This is a powerful drug film that doesn't hold anything back. It is not pretty to look at, but also like Buffalo '66, it's hideously unattractive counterpart, the movie has something to say.
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