Less Than Zero

Starring:Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz, Robert Downey Jr., James Spader, Tony Bill, Nicholas Pryor, Donna Mitchell, Michael Bowen, Sarah Buxton, Lisanne Falk, Michael Greene, Neith Hunter, Afton Smith, Brian Wimmer, Kelly Wolf, David Colby, Anthony Kiedis, Flea, Brittain Frye, Jack Irons
Director: Marek Kanievska
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Product Description
In a spellbinding dramatic performance, Robert Downey, Jr. portrays Julian, a Beverly Hills brat who has it all: looks, charm, smarts, a rich father and a drug habit. His friend and girlfriend (Andrew McCarthy and Jami Gertz) are trying to help, but Julian's world is crumbling so fast, he might take them out with him. The result is a powerful and compelling story of three kids who started out with everything and are about to wind up with Less Than Zero.

System Requirements:

Running Time 98 Min

Format: DVD MOVIE
Amazon.com
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

Average customer rating:

O.K!
Film for addicts...not everyone else
Pretty Boys Make Nice Graves.
The years have not been kind ...
This could have been a good movie about excess

Less Than Zero
Starring: Andrew McCarthy , Jami Gertz , Robert Downey Jr. , James Spader , and Tony Bill
Director: Marek Kanievska
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00005V9IH
Release Date: 2002-03-05

Amazon.com

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

Product Description

In a spellbinding dramatic performance, Robert Downey, Jr. portrays Julian, a Beverly Hills brat who has it all: looks, charm, smarts, a rich father and a drug habit. His friend and girlfriend (Andrew McCarthy and Jami Gertz) are trying to help, but Julian's world is crumbling so fast, he might take them out with him. The result is a powerful and compelling story of three kids who started out with everything and are about to wind up with Less Than Zero.

System Requirements:

Running Time 98 Min

Format: DVD MOVIE

Customer Reviews:

O.K!.......2007-04-13

I think what mostly has a lot of people frustrated about this movie (myself included) is that it's exactly opposite from the book. With that being said, I think they also wanted to somewhat bring some resolution to the movie that wasn't in the book. I guess I'm torn in this review for the simple fact that even though I know this movie is not like the book, I still didn't altogether hate it (I didn't love it either). Don't get me wrong, they seriously twisted the details as far as the way the book actually goes, but in the book nothing is solved. The same way you start at page 1 is the same way you'll end up at page 200. This movie is sad and depressing, and that's exactly what the book is, but the movie would've been better if they wouldn't have deliberately changed so much. In the book, Clay wasn't the hero, he was an addict too. Secondly, this movie focuses only on Julien's addiction, but Julien isn't even in the book until the end. Thirdly, the real slap in the face to the fans is that Julien..DOESN'T DIE! Don't get me wrong, I guess with the movie they wanted to bring forth a resolution while emphasizing not to do drugs because this is ultimately what your life could be. It just didn't manage to impress any fans of the novel though. I must admit the one good thing this movie did have going for it was James Spader. James Spader was definitely in his comfort zone though seeing as how he played the bully/bad guy in all of the movies he did in the 80's. It doesn't matter he still rocked it though. Ultimately, I see the statement they were making with the movie, but I guess I could've appreciated it more if they stuck to the story. I guess the best advice I can give is to judge this movie on it's own terms. If you avoid the book you'll like the movie. If you've already read the book, then you should avoid the movie because it will only make you angry.

Film for addicts...not everyone else.......2006-10-14

What the majority of the reviewers of this film seem to be missing is that to a heroin/opiate/pain pill addict, this film is a visual representation of the bondage and inescapable fact of addiction they endure every single day of their lives. Indeed, it was made for anyone who has suffered through the misery of opiate addiction. Only those who know what that pain is could possibly connect with Julian and the prison he finds himself in. I understand why those who haven't endured that pain may scoff and dismiss this film. However, the part in the movie when Julian's supply has run out and he is in acute withdrawal is perhaps the most heart-wrenching, painful scene I have ever viewed, and at the very least I would hope non-addicts would find some compassion toward addicts. While addicts are responsible for their plight, once physical addiction sets in, the individual is no longer capable of making rational decisions, and it is to that person that this film speak to. I've seen so many people I care about endure this very same painful experience. So fine...the acting wasn't perfect; the screenplay veered from the book, the director wasn't perfect, but in that one moment, the audience gets to see what an addict goes through when withdrawal sets in, and until you've suffered through something like that, you couldn't possibly understand the significance of this film.

Pretty Boys Make Nice Graves........2006-06-06

I think the title of my review sums it up: we all knew Julian would end up dead at the end of this film, despite the well-meaning yet flimsey attempts Clay and Blair made to pull him from the wreck of his life.

And is it just me, or did Andrew McCarthy's Clay look like Opie Taylor when he went to face off with James Spader's Rip while
Rip was in the pool? I'm surprised I didn't start laughing out loud, a la "MST3K", such lame protagonism. It's like, "Okay, but you and what army? I've got your buddy and your erstwhile girlfriend in my pocket, and you're just Ivy League Ken! Ha! Ha!". Spader was always good at playing a jerk.

While this movie is the best 80's cheese has to offer, I can't help but be a softie when it comes to these three muttonheads. I do feel badly seeing Julian go down the slipperly slope of addiction, and rather than want to smack some sense into him, I'd would much rather save that for his a**hole dad. What idiot in his right mind gives his kid that much money to start a recording studio straight out of high school if the kid has no music business experience to begin with? I'm thinking if you have the frogskins to p*ss away on this venture, you have enough money to give your kid the highest quality drug rehab there is to offer. My parents would have done this for me. No, just tough-love "daddy's little family disgrace" to the point where he is sleeping on park benches in expensive clothing and selling himself through a ruthless ex-high school classmate to pay off his 50,000K coke debt. Let him not only steal from his friends, but become a potential AIDS statistic. If this had been my fate, my dad would have cut both his arms off!

Not having the benefit of a funeral scene with the old b@stard sobbing his head off in regret boils my blood! Parenting Beverly Hills Style. And Blair's dad was no prize pig, either!
It broke my heart even further, despite the hollow park bench scene, where Clay discusses with Blair how Julian coped with his mother's death when he was barely out of diapers. Man, this kid had it rough long before he discovered coke.

Overall, this movie did have its silly moments (and I'm green with envy over the lavish Christmas parties those Beverly Hills kids had at their nightclubs), but if you have ever experienced a drug addiction of your own or know someone who has, this flick has a strong tearjerker potential. I'm surprised no high school teacher has the guts to use this and Uma Thurman's overdose scene from "Pulp Fiction" as an example of what drugs can do to your life.

The years have not been kind ..........2006-05-29

I actually saw this movie when it first came out, and was so blown away by Robert Downey Jr's performance (he was just starting out on his illustrious, if self-destructive career) that I didn't notice much else about the movie, certainly not Jami Gertz or Andrew McCarthy who are as close to being ciphers as it's possible to have on the big screen. (The adults in the film are as cipheresque as the kids, so there is no real dramatic interest there -- we have only the kids, and their interactions with drugs, the party scene, and each other.)

Seeing it again 25 years later, well ...Downey's performance still holds up, but the rest of the movie is less than zero (sorry). The director is so absorbed with staging endless party scenes (unintentionally hilarious in their excesses) that he forgets to give the main characters anything interesting to do, and they never develop into anyone we care about. The final scene, with McCarthy and Gertz sitting forlornly in a cemetery, has no emotional payoff whatever-- McCarthy says come with me to the East Coast, Gertz responds yes, I'll go with you, and the viewer says, "Thank God, that means the movie's over."

Finally, James Spader doesn't play a real character either, but as other reviewers have noted, he is interestingly slimy as the chief bad guy. Glad to see he's still getting work, in a fairly interesting role on "Boston Legal".

This could have been a good movie about excess .......2006-05-13

in the hills of beverly. Spoiled rich bratty kids snorting their lives up their plastic surgeonized noses. How sweet. James Spader was good as the sleazy drug pusher, what happened to him, he had real potiential to be a fine actor. Robert Downey,Jr. is terrific in any part he takes. Jamie Gertz reminds me of Tori Spelling, she has to be related to some big shot, how else does she get hired? She can't act and she's not even pretty or even busty. Like Pam Anderson, would anybody remember her without her big oversized boobies? I doubt it. Enjoy!

Average customer rating:

O.K!
Film for addicts...not everyone else
Pretty Boys Make Nice Graves.
The years have not been kind ...
This could have been a good movie about excess

Less Than Zero [Region 2]
Starring: Andrew McCarthy , Jami Gertz , Robert Downey Jr. , James Spader , and Tony Bill
Director: Marek Kanievska
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video