Barfly - Mickey Rourke, Faye Dunaway (Import - NTSC Region Free)

I actually knew and went to Miami Beach High School with Mickey Rourke. This is certainly the best of his movie and the least recognized or known. His acting in this film is absolutely Oscar material, yet the movie was never properly marketed. What else can we expect from Cappola's film and detail of perfection in cinematography.Mickey's lunatic acting is so powerful and convincing that you feel as part of the film. The set captures a real decadence of losers who drink themselves into oblivion while facing their daily inner dragons. This film will be loved and enjoyed by all, its strong, sentimental, intellectual, and gives us a sense of what's being down and under its all about.Mickey again delivers an outstanding performance with Faye Dunaway who shares the sentiments of Mickey's bizarre alcoholic behavior without having to excuse himself or justify his excessive drinking. The drama unfolds with true scenes of short conflicts, passion, comedy, and profound poetry that will mesmerize all audiences. This film would be admired by all Shakespeare fans...The film is super entertaining, profound, melancholic and will certainly live you amazed in what classic films should be all about! This movie should be placed as the top ten in your list and transferred to DVD. Highly recommended!!

Part Robert Mitchum and William S Burrows' this great movie gets Charles Bukowski dead right. Funny and endearing and more real than most people will ever admit. The Gutter beats all. No faking here.

Both the leading actors should have gotten Academy Awards for this. It's riveting. It is dark, but dark is good. Always intriguing.

I tried several times but it just won't work. It starts with a blurry intro selection screen. After selecting start it plays for a while but then stops. I then started playing channels to see if that would work. Again, it would only play part of it and then end. Given how expensive this DVD has become you might want to take the risk but just so you know. Why the studio doesn't make a real DVD available is beyond me.

After reading the novel Hollywood this movie was a must watch.

Good classic

5 stars. "TO ALL MY FRIENDS...!!!"

The whole cast is amazing but Mickey Rourke knocks it out of the park as Henry Chinaski, a character based on Charles Bukowski. Bukowski himself was impressed by Rourke's performance, which says something because he was a man not easily impressed. Check it out, you'll be glad you did, even if it's just to have a laugh at a very young Frank Stallone.

Good at last to get hold of Barfly which has proved difficult to track down on DVD. This one is an import copy but no worries as the film plays fine in English. The cover is a little deceptive as seems to suggest a steamy love affair like nine and a half weeks which Rourke also starred in. But those who love the film know it better as the loose biographical account of writer Charles Bukowski's life as both drunken street-philosopher and aspiring writer. Scripted by Bukowski (with a very small cameo sitting at a bar) the film builds on the myth of Buk/Chinaski as a hard-drinking layabout who just happens to get into print, soon to become a cult within the underground literary scene.It probably helps to know something about Bukowski to get on with the film's gritty outlook. This is not typical Hollywood as it portrays the seedy, underbelly of American/Capitalist life. The redeeming factor is the cruel humour that runs through the film despite the poverty, the seeming hopelessness and the occasional violence. This is what Buk saw as being the truth of human life, the kind he translated into his poems and stories, and the film does manage to capture the flavour of his work.Barfly is perhaps best described as an arthouse film that stands up well to repeated plays. Rourke's portrayal of Bukowski is somewhat grotesque and overdone (Buk in real life looked after his appearance and wasn't as scruffy as Rourke's character). What carries the film along is the scathing observations of modern life that Bukowski is famed for. Funny and sad, but never obvious.

The film is fine. What is irritating is that there is no way of getting rid of the subtitles which are in Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish. They distract and especially to me as I can more or less read Scandiwegian. There is no indication in the product description that you have to have the subtitles on all the time. it seems to me to be a minimum to allow the viewer to turn the subtitles off.

Couldn't watch it as dialogue was in Dutch & couldn't change it to English. No mention of this when I ordered it.

Now a classic, but easily stands the test of time, acting is superb

Excellent service Good Value