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List Price: $9.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 3866
Released: March 5, 2002 |
| Our Price: $4.70 |
| Used Price: $5.12 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 7-JUN-2005
Media Type: DVD
Description of Less Than Zero:
Dreary, pointless late-'80s novel by literary poseur Bret Easton Ellis focused on listless, shiftless, drug-sniffing, sex-swapping, dead-end California teens with too much money and time on their hands. Which just about sums up this movie, though it's not nearly as interesting as that. This is mostly due to the ridiculously cleaned-up script and lifeless direction, which whitewashes the baser depravity and replaces it with perversion-lite and fashion shows. It doesn't help that director Marek Kanievska is saddled with Brat Pack lesser (make that least) lights Andrew McCarthy and Jami Gertz. The only things that lift this film above the muck are the performances by James Spader as a particularly heinous drug dealer and Robert Downey Jr. as a rich-kid addict with no self-control. --Marshall Fine
Less Than Zero Reviews:
Good for Downey jr Fans 
2008-07-17 - Great movie for any fans of Downey Jr. You can see his desperation and the lost hope of his friends and family. Awesome performance.
Seems Like a Flashy Version of an Afterschool Special about Drug Abuse. 
2008-05-19 - "Less Than Zero" must be in the running for the movie that least resembles its source material, in this case Bret Easton Ellis' 1985 novel of the same name. In this 1987 film, Clay (Andrew McCarthy) returns to his native Los Angeles for Christmas break his freshman year of college. He hopes to rekindle his relationship with girlfriend Blaire (Jami Gertz), who had taken up with his best friend Julian (Robert Downey, Jr.) in Clay's absence. He's disappointed to find Blaire strung out on cocaine and annoyed by her insistence that Julian is in some kind of trouble and needs his help. Julian's business failures have left him deep in debt to a drug dealer (James Spader) and wasted all the time.
There probably isn't much point in comparing "Less Than Zero", the movie, with the book. They have little more than the characters' names in common, but Ellis' novel does strike me as a strange source for an anti-drug movie. The tone of the movie is wired for the MTV generation, in contrast to the book's droning, indifferent narration and aimless characters. Nosebleed Clay has been replaced with a goody-two-shoes, in love with Blaire, concerned about doing the right thing, who won't touch cocaine! This is a conventional drama about friends trying to save one another from the abyss of drug dependency and its concomitant evils. The film is a humorless converse of the book in most respects.
Judging the movie on its own merits, I like the cast, although Andrew McCarthy is conspicuously too old to play 18. I also like the theme song, The Bangles' remake of Simon & Garfunkel's "Hazy Shade of Winter", which plays in its entirety over the sequence of Clay's return to L.A. That song captures the 1980s better than the rest of the movie. The trouble is that this film is a very straightforward, one-note, anti-drug message, and that's all it is. Drugs will ruin your relationships, plunge you into the depths of despair, and probably kill you. It's surprisingly talky, and the dialogue clanks. Clay tries to save a couple of friends from their vices between semesters. Not horrible, but not noteworthy either.
The DVD (20th Century Fox 2001): There are 3 theatrical trailers, an English trailer (1min 30 sec), a Spanish version of the same trailer, and a "Hard Version" trailer in English (2 min). And there are five 30-second TV spots. Subtitles for the film are available in English and Spanish. Dubbing available in French.
Downey's performance MAKES 'Less Than Zero' into something compelling and watchable.
2008-05-01 - It is not quite the compliment it may sound to say that Robert Downey Jr. steals every scene in LESS THAN ZERO (even the ones he's not in). His co-stars in this botched film version of the infamous Bret Easton Ellis novel are Andrew McCarthy and Jami Gertz, both of whom so completely embody their characters' blankness that they leave two voids at the center of the story. Downey could mistakenly be judged to have walked off with the acting honors by default, the easiest victory since Theresa Russell (in a very similar role) wrested THE RAZOR'S EDGE away from Bill Murray and Catherine Hicks. This, however, would be to severely underrate Downey's careful recreation of a life out of control. An accident waiting to happen, Downey's Julian roars with the painful last gasp of a party boy for whom time is running out. Lying upside down in McCarthy's red convertible, singing screwed-up Christmas carols as they cruise L.A. after dark, Downey portrays the side of drug use that the "Just Say No" folks most dread: It's fun to be high (that is, until it's not). Despite the screenplay's watered-down insistence that Downey and McCarthy are competing for the favors of Gertz's character, Downey instead slyly plays his part like it's torn from the scorched pages of the novel, where the two boys are lovers, not just friends. It's a bold choice that brings his character to vivid life: In addition to all the other emotional ravages he evokes, he shows us with his panicky, sad eyes that he knows he's losing McCarthy to Gertz. Not that all of this aspect of his character is in the subtext; to pay his debts off to his dealer Rip (James Spader), Julian acts as a prostitute for Rip's other male clients.
In his absurdly cheerful holiday shirt, the incorrigible Julian offers us the flip side of those too-neat TV movie plots about parents practicing "tough love" on their addict children; seen here from the helplessly self-destructive kid's point of view, the familiar tale is unbearably painful to watch. But Downey's energetic charisma keeps us from looking away, even when he takes us into the horror show of what it looks like when Julian overdoses. Downey makes us care how Julian, cut off by his family and hunted by his creditors, lives before he dies.
In the film's most resonant image, the sweating, shell-shocked Julian is feeling so like a cornered animal that even the reflections off a swimming pool take on the appearance of bars that entrap him. He won't, can't, go inside to a Christmas party: "I feel like Tiny f---in' Tim," he says, so despondent that it's clear he knows no help will come, although he never stops lying outwardly. "It's not going to happen again, this; it's over," he'll tell anyone who'll listen, and Downey gives just the right hollow cadence to this automatic lie that fools no one. "I'm gonna probably go back into rehab." Downey conveys the physical hysteria of the hopeless addict with equal finesse. Long after the movie is over, one is haunted by the scene of Downey alone (his pals are doing Christmas dinner with their dysfunctional families), doing a lonely little soft-shoe routine. Simple, understated, unforgettable. It is a sublime moment.
It has been said that Downey's take on Julian was probably a case of life imitaing art. Perhaps. . . But that only makes the performance much more astonishing. Plenty of Hollywood's elite have tried their hands at the same type of role and come up wanting, even though they too were "living the role in real life." (Patty Duke in VALLEY OF THE DOLLS anyone?)
This movie is far less than it should have been... 
2008-04-18 - If I had never read Bret Easton Ellis' masterful novel from which this movie was spawned I may have actually enjoyed it for what it was, not what it was attempting to be. The fact that `Less than Zero' happens to be one of my all time favorite novels made me so excited to dig up this film and give it a watch. What I experienced though was pure shock, not in how good it was but in how unfaithful it was to the novel that inspired it. The film is cleaned up and reformatted to such a degree that you lose the entire feeling and meaning behind the novel. They didn't just alter an ending or add a subplot but they drastically changed the characters, their actions, their problems, their motives, their home life, their relationships. Nothing is the same; except the names.
So, I'll say that apart from the novel `Less than Zero' is a decent film with a promising prose. On holiday from college, Clay Easton returns to LA to visit his family and friends; including his ex-girlfriend Blair. Upon returning home, Clay uncovers that his former best friend Julian has a dangerous substance abuse problem and is in far too deep with local dealer Rip. Clay and Blair decide to help their friend overcome this problem before it is too late.
Like I said; the prose is promising...but it is not comparable to the novel.
If you consider these spoilers I apologize, but I feel that if I don't at least point out the differences between this film and the novel than I am doing the reader a disservice. Within the novel `everyone' has a substance abuse problem. Julian is Clay's old dealer and while Julian does have more problems than he can bear up under, Clay could care less. In fact, Clay just wants money and drugs for himself. The point of Ellis' novel was to show the deterioration of teenage society in the 80's. Kanievska's film adaptation sugarcoats everything to such a degree that you lose the purpose of the story. I guess you can't really blame Kanievska as much as Harley Peyton who penned the screenplay.
I know that when this film was made there was a different standard as far as what was acceptable to contain within a film, and so that was most likely the reason that some of the most memorable (albeit disturbing) moments of the novel were not included in the film; which is a shame because it was in those moments that the novel came to life in all its apathetic glory. I can only imagine how masterfully this novel could be adapted, say in the hands of Darren Aronofsky.
One thing that this film did though was give Robert Downey Jr. a canvas to paint his talent upon. As the conflicted Julian Wells, Downey soars above the rest of the cast. His performance is mature and natural (maybe his own substance abuse problems - which rumor has it sprung up around this time - may have had something to do with his spot-on portrayal). James Spader also comes through with a magnetic and commanding performance as the ruthless Rip. Anthony McCarthy is boring to me; not what Clay should have been. Jami Gertz does a decent job as Blair, but she is not the greatest of actresses and is not very memorable. Downey Jr. and Spader easily wipe the floor with everyone else attached to this film.
In the end I can't recommend this film because it goes against my better judgment. I know that a lot of people enjoyed this film; but I can only ascertain that they have not read the novel. If they had then they would equally be disappointed at the missed opportunity for greatness. `Less than Zero' is a decent film, but it is not the film it was supposed to be. It is so far from what Ellis' original vision was that it does not deserve to carry the title. If they had called this movie something else; anything else; then I could have added another star. To stake a claim as something, and then prove to be everything but, is just wrong.
Masterpeice and Seminal Film of the Late 1980s 
2008-03-11 - "Less Than Zero" is one of the seminal films of its era. Director Marek Kanievska and cinematographer Ed Lachman created a masterpiece of form and style, unlike any other film in the 1980s. "Less Than Zero" visual style was the first to blend the high style glossy fashion ad look of Los Angeles and Palm Springs with the first MTV generation energy of music videos.
For example, one of the establishing scenes of the movie is the intro credits with Clay, portrayed by Andrew McCarthy in his finest role, arriving home to sunny L.A during Christmas Vacation. A yellow filter is placed over the lens so that L.A. glows. There is no dialog, but only the booming singing of The Bangles' rock cover of Simon & Garfunkels "Hazy Shade of Winter". The palm trees go by as Clay's taxi floats into one of Beverly Hill's affluent neighborhoods. The music dies down as Clay enters his empty modern impersonal family home and plays the message machine, only to learn that both his parents could not be present to welcome him home.
The foreshadowing is all there in that establishing scene with the credits - the lack of familial love, the emptiness and detachment of the main character that matches the hollow environment.
The first party is a lavish F. Scott Fitzgerald "Great Gatsbyesqe" 1987 party filled with dozens of television playing video images timed to rock musics. There are theme winter wonderland rooms, where the fake snow on the floors represent the white cocaine being blown up the rich teen's noses.
The plot of the film is loosely based on the brilliant first novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Mr. Ellis' novel stands as one of the most significant literary works of the late 20th Century.
Many amateur "film" critics have criticized the film for not doing justice to Mr. Ellis' literary creation. Fortunately, I do not suffer from the misconception that a film must be judged by how exact it matches its literary inspiration, rather than judging the film on its own merit.
Screenwriter Harley Peyton, who was rumored to produce a first draft closely following the novel, modified his script into a lean script that could be transformed into a brilliant motion picture. The essence of isolation, friendship, drug-addition, and lost youth remains. I would argue that a closer adaptation of Mr. Ellis' novel would not have made a good film, because rarely on screen is it successful to portray a main character without emotion. Mr. Peyton needed to create character arcs, where the characters start one place and over the course of the film has some change, whether positive or negative.
Robert Downey Jr. gives the performance of his life (literally) portraying the drug addict that he was to become and which almost ruined his career.
One of my favorite shots in film is the second to last shot. Andrew McCarthy, Robert Downey Jr. and Jami Gertz sit mourning in Clay's classic Corvette which sits on a lonely road in the middle of the desert surrounded by Joshua trees. A flyover shot of the desert closes in for a close-up on the Corvette and the devastated main characters. The shot is breathtaking.
Taken in context of film history of the 1980s, this is a clearly darker take on youth, than the John Hughe's stories of the time, like "Pretty in Pink" (1984) and "The Breakfast Club" (1985). "Less Than Zero" - the film and the novel should be a must see film and must read novel for every serious film viewer and reader.
