Synopsis
Portland, Oregon, 1971. Bob Hughes is the charismatic leader of a peculiar quartet, formed by his wife, Dianne, and another couple, Rick and Nadine, who skillfully steal from drugstores and hospital medicine cabinets in order to appease their insatiable need for drugs. But neither fun nor luck last forever.
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Cast
- Matt DillonBob
- Kelly LynchDianne
- James RemarGentry
- James Le GrosRick
- Heather GrahamNadine
- Beah RichardsDrug Counselor
- Grace ZabriskieBob's Mother
- Max PerlichDavid
- William S. BurroughsTom the Priest
- Eric HullDruggist
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Sun-Times
Drugstore Cowboy is one of the best films in the long tradition of American outlaw road movies - a tradition that includes "Bonnie and Clyde," "Easy Rider," "Midnight Cowboy" and "Badlands." - 100
TV Guide Magazine
Gus Van Sant's direction here is supremely confident, fusing witty camerawork, neat editing, and a jazz-oriented score to make Drugstore Cowboy an exhilaratingly bumpy ride. - 90
Variety
No previous drug-themed film has the honesty or originality of Gus Van Sant's drama Drugstore Cowboy. - 90
Washington Post
Van Sant gives his material shape and an invigorating, syncopated style. It keeps coming at you in surprising, dazzling ways. - 89
Austin Chronicle
Certainly one of the best drug movies ever made.... Great performances make this dispassionate study a memorable experience. - 88
Boston Globe
Drugstore Cowboy, Gus Van Sant's fresh, gutsy societal underbelly film, never wallows in picturesque down-and-outism, except at the end, when Dillon's character, frightened by the death of a girl he didn't like much and spooked by his own paranoiac suspicion, checks into a seedy hotel while trying to go cold turkey and not yield to the influence of a junkie priest drolly played by William Burroughs. [27 Oct 1989] - 80
Washington Post
Neither federally admonishing nor irresponsibly romantic, Cowboy stays high without being highhanded. - 80
Chicago Reader
Adapted by Van Sant and Daniel Yost from an unpublished autobiographical novel by James Fogle, this 1989 feature has the kind of stylistic conviction that immediately wins one over.
