Marg Helgenberger Movie:

Editorial Review:
Thomas Jane stars as Beat writer and Jack Kerouac-crony Neal Cassady, in a promising film that quickly flops. Based on a letter Cassady wrote to Kerouac, the highly stylized film by Stephen Kay pretty much follows the former around as he does not much of anything at all. Keanu Reeves is incomprehensible as a friend of Cassady, and Kay's jazzy, angular, colliding style does nothing to illuminate the Beat icon's all-important internal life. If you're new to the whole Kerouac-Cassady-Beat world, this is not a good first stop; slightly better is John Byrum's 1980 Heart Beat, which at least introduces some of the principal figures. --Tom Keogh

The Last Time I Committed Suicide [Region 2] Reviews:
Incomprehensible
2008-09-15 - Ok, Jack Kerouac's writings may not be the easiest to follow, but this film is worse. What IS going on here? Beats me. The film-maker was more interested in stylization than story-telling. I gave up after about 30 mins, which is 25 more than a movie deserves if it gets off to a thud like this one.

All the making out made me lose interest...
2007-10-07 - Pros

-The old school feel of the jazzy songs are a big plus; very smooth and melancholy. I think it captured the big picture of the environment they were in, in spades and spades...
-90% of the people on-screen are quite attractive
-The story has you interested in the beginning...

Cons

-...But then it falls off dramatically
-Keanu wasn't in the movie enough; you see him play pool once, and make out once...
-The main character NEVER gets his life together
-One of his girlfriends commits suicide in the bathroom
-This movie dragged on towards the end like no other, I swear!

The main thing I loved about this movie was that the main character, Cassidy, who's quite the looker, wanted to have a life - a REAL life; one filled with a family, a wife, a kid or two, and some ambitions and drive...he doesn't quite find that during the course of the movie, but he doesn't give up...

3.1 stars.

If I could sum this movie up in 11 words or less it would be:

Get your life together; and more Keanu Reeves, pretty, pretty please!

This isn't the last time he'll commit suicide
2006-04-25 - Hugely underrated film, most probably because of its art school-like visuals, "Suicide" is based upon an actual letter beat hero Neal Cassady wrote to Jack Kerouac about he and a girl almost but did not quite get the American Dream. Thomas Jane (who played Mickey Mantle in "61*") is equisite as Cassady, bringing a frenetic energy to the screen much in the way a Kerouac or Ginsburg reader would picture him and his smooth talking, car stealing self. Keanu Reeves surprises as Harry, the devil on Cassady's shoulder (who isn't actually based on any living person) who removes Cassady from his chance to hook back up with Joan and his future happiness. Gretchen Mol surprises as a hot, sexy underage sexpot Neal can't keep his hands off of. The acting is superb, the direction equally as good, and the writing brings us to the beat times of a beat god in a beat post-war world.

It all perfectly meshes with the soundtrack, a mix of classic and modern bebop that brings it all together.

This movie is perfect for the restless.
2005-12-06 - I know very little about the Beat culture and have never read anything by Kerouac, but I still enjoyed this movie. And as other reviewers have said before, the movie doesn't really have a "point" and it's not trying to change your views on the world. What it is doing is telling a story about a young man who is fighting with himself. Neal Cassidy, at the point in his life this movie captures, is torn between a self that wants to settle down with a wife and kid and live in a house with a picket fence, and a self that wants to escape with few ties and see what exactly the world can offer him. I think it's a story that many people can relate to. I, personally, loved the movie. I enjoyed the way in which the told the story, I loved the music, and I thought the actors were fantastic.

one that slipped through the cracks
2005-03-04 - It seems that this movie can only be appreciated by fans of beat literature. If you happen to be one, or are curious about the beats, this is a fantastic movie. The movie is a dramatization of a letter that Neal Cassidy, the muse of the beat generation, wrote his famous pal, Jack Kerouac. The film brings to life all the snappy, fireball energy that was Neal Cassidy while also demonstrating the subtle poetic irony that of the beat generation. If you don't know anything about the beats, or don't care to, then this one will leave you scratching your head. If, on the other hand, you can name three beat authors and a half a dozen Charlie Parker tunes off the top of your head, then you'd be a fool not check this one out. Get your hands on the soundtrack if you can too....