Paul Thomas Anderson wrote, directed and produced "Boogie Nights", the most successful film so far in the short career of the young director. His previous film "Sydney" generated a critical buzz, but nothing compared to "Boogie Nights", which received three Academy Award nominations. Anderson's obscure first film was "The Dirk Diggler Story" back in 1988, indicating that the idea for "Boogie Nights" was a long time coming.
"Boogie Nights" is about the rise and fall of a porn star. The story begins in 1977. Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) is a busboy at a disco nightclub, only 17 but already with an active sex life. He is discovered by adult filmmaker Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds). Soon, he moves into Horner's mansion, and becomes part of his adopted family of cast and crew. These include childlike Rollergirl (Heather Graham), mother-figure Amber (Julianne Moore), and cameraman and groupie Scotty (Philip Seymour Hoffman).
The ensemble cast continues with Little Bill (William H. Macy) who is eternally jealous over the indifferent promiscuity of his wife (Nina Hartley). Buck Swope (John Cheadle) is a would-be cowboy and stereo salesman whose career as a porn star interferes with his real ambitions. The Colonel (Robert Ridgely) is a creepy producer, while Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) is Adam's none-too-clever co-star and best friend. Adams' career takes off as the well-endowed Dirk Diggler, but drugs and attitude then take their toll.
Probably the biggest problem with "Boogie Nights" is the number of supporting characters, each of whom have their subplots. Even though the film is two and a half hours long, that isn't time enough to cover so many characters. After subjecting the cast to numerous humiliations, the happy ending seems artificial as well.
Anderson makes ineffective use of violence. There is a scene where Buck is a bystander in a robbery, with splattering gore as a result. While this scene provides Buck with the means of achieving his dreams, surely there is a more natural and less gratuitous method. Rollergirl uncharacteristically joins in the beating of a college student, whose character undergoes unlikely transformations in just a few minutes. Another violent scene, a drug deal gone bad, is unwisely presented as comedy.
There is one successful use of violence, a scene which has Diggler jumped by homophobes. The snippets from Horner's porn films are also entertaining, lampooning their pretensions to art. But on the whole, I much prefer an earlier film featuring Wahlberg, the similar "Basketball Diaries". The real terror of drugs and the resulting crime and poverty comes across much better in that film. (49/100)
From writer/director P.T. Anderson comes the turbulent behind the scenes story of an extended family of filmmakers who set out to revolutionize the ad...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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