Review of Factotum

Introduction

Henry Chinaski (Matt Dillon) is a wannabe writer who struggles to hold down a job for longer than five minutes. This is mainly due to his propensity to drink all of the time, his bosses mainly sacking him after they find him in a bar.

Chinaski hooks up with Jan (Lilli Taylor) in, you guessed it, a bar. With neither party seeming to have much better to do, the two hook up with Chinaski moving into Jan`s apartment. Things go OK for a while, the two drink and do the horizontal four times a day, but then Chinaski gets bored and leaves.

He then hooks up with Laura (Marisa Tomei) who introduces him to Pierre (Didier Flamand). Pierre is another wannabe, this time a wannabe composer who has an idea called The Emperor of San Francisco. The three, plus two other drink-sodden women, go out on Pierre`s yacht for a short-lived boat ride. Then they head back to shore and disappear from Chinaski`s life.

For some strange reason, Chinaski hunts down Jan, who is by now working as a chambermaid in a hotel. They get back together and all is OK for a while. Then it`s not and…

Ah, who cares?

Video

The film looks as depressing as it sounds above. Marisa Tomei was an image of perfection in My Cousin Vinny, but she looks more than a little haggard here. As does everyone.

Audio

It has subtitles. This is a good thing if you like this film as the section with Marisa Tomei in it has some sound problems.

Features

Deleted scenes - 15 minutes of unstructured deleted scenes. No context or commentary to explain why they were deleted, and no option to watch them individually.

Horseshoe - a short film based on a poem by Bukowski. Very arty, very boring.

Conclusion

There are wannabe writers the world over. Hell, you`re looking at the words of one right now. Anyone reviewing or posting on the internet is a frustrated writer, else they wouldn`t write a word. This film is about a frustrated writer, but one who will never succeed due to his sheer laziness and weakness for drink.

The fatal flaw in this film is that it is depressing and dull. Dillon`s character shows no kind of drive whatsoever; simply drinking, having sex and flitting from job to job. Now you could well admire a man for the middle activity, but these are liaisons with people as drunk and apathetic as he is. Thus no sympathy is created for the man or any of his cohorts, simply a loathing for all that they are. They exist to drink, but this isn`t drinking to have fun. This is drinking simply to drink, and it`s dull.

Maybe I`m missing something. I knew from the moment I saw the artwork that I would hate this film. I`m also suspicious of any DVD cover that boasts one word quotes such as "Irresistable" or "Hilarious" as this one does. I found it to be neither unless you count that I had to resist long and hard to stop myself turning the darn thing off.

I would say that I`ve lost an hour and a half of my life watching this that I will never get back. That`s true, but it doesn`t include the fifteen minutes of deleted scenes which are just as bad.

I only hope that Bukowski`s books are more humorous and fun than this train wreck of a film turned out to be.