Product Details

• Actors: Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, Robin Wright, Garry Shandling
• Directors: Anthony Drazan
• Writers: David Rabe
• Producers: Anthony Drazan, Carl Colpaert, David Hamburger, Frederick Zollo, H. Michael Heuser
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: New Line Home Video
• VHS Release Date: November 9, 1999
• Run Time: 122 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0780626109
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #295,314 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

You wouldn't want to spend much time with the folks from David Rabe's play Hurlyburly. A sensation when it played on stage (with marquee names Harvey Keitel and William Hurt), Rabe's tale of the cocaine-influenced days of Hollywood in the 1980s is a bitter rambling of what humans do with too much drive, power, and money. Robin Williams's joke about cocaine being God's way of telling you have too much money certainly comes into play here. A few days in the life of casting agent Eddie (Sean Penn) and his friends (separated by a year) take place in Eddie's posh L.A. bungalow. Here he and his roomie Mickey (Kevin Spacey) talk nonstop about sex and power, syntax and meaning. Into this wash comes a charitable bigwig (Gary Shandling), a street kid (Anna Paquin), and Eddie's rudderless friend, the violent Phil (Chazz Palminteri). If there is a central story to be found, it's Eddie's drive to fall in love with Darlene (Robin Wright Penn), who finds this world exciting--or at least intoxicating.

This is not the bunch to invite over to your house, and many might even want to skip the two-hour film with its talky, pathetic prose. These characters would probably be despicable even if they weren't addicted to some narcotic. And the talk is endless; conversations that finish with a door slam are taken up moments later on the cell phone (a nice updating touch by Rabe). What draws big-name actors to Rabe's work is the chance to work on one's raw acting talent. Penn and Palminteri fit their roles like gloves, and Spacey again proves he is one of the most watchable actors around. Every nuance, bad pun, and irrelevant slip of Spacey's wicked tongue has a brutal kind of poetry here in a film that can be admired but not loved. --Doug Thomas

From The New Yorker

Hollywood lowlifes awash in cynicism, drugs, desperation, and peculiarly elaborate pedantry about minor verbal distinctions in the absence of genuine feeling about anything. What seemed shocking onstage fifteen years ago in David Rabe's play now seems rancid and rather meaningless, though it's still funny. The actors appear to revel in the vileness of the characters they are playing. Sean Penn is particularly good as the unloved scuzzbag, Eddie. With Chazz Palminteri as a psychopathic actor, Kevin Spacey doing his affectless thing, Robin Wright Penn, Meg Ryan, Anna Paquin, and Garry Shandling. Rabe adapted his own play. Directed by Anthony Drazan. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Challenging and rewarding, March 22, 2002

By 

Matthew Horner (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hurlyburly (New Line Platinum Series) (DVD)

pHurlyburly is a word which means "confusion or tumult." It is an apt title for this movie, which details the confusion often caused by some people's search for a life with true meaning. The questions here are numerous, but for both the main characters and the audience, the answers are very few. What we do see are the ways in which the characters deal with the mystery that is life.

Sean Penn play Eddie, whose house in the Hollywood Hills is the film's main location. His best friend Mickey [Kevin Spacey] has moved in with him because his marriage is on the rocks. The two are executives in the movie business. They are a case of opposites attracting. Mickey is low-keyed and never, ever ruffled. He has a basically content, though somewhat cynical, view of life. Eddie is an excitable guy who lives on the edge. Mickey may be the only sane friend he has.

I should say here that one of the elements in Hurlyburly that put many people off is that Eddie is a drug addict. Except for a short period with a new girl friend, he seems to be high all his waking hours. Thus, some viewers felt that his quest to find out whether he had a place in the universal order of things [assuming there IS an order] was absurd. It isn't politically correct these days, but while I do not advocate drug use, I do think many of the people who turn to them are already very confused. To them, drugs are a logical but very dangerous tool. Substance abuse may also be an attempt to soothe an already tortured soul. A person's using drugs is not a sufficient reason to write off what they think or feels.

Phil [Chazz Palminteri] is another of Eddie's friends. Phil is an obvious psychotic. His problems include heavy paranoia and a complete fear and loathing of women. He is prone to violence as well. Yet Eddie senses a goodness in the chaos that is Phil. He also relates to Phil's search for some sense to life. While the other characters mock working-class Phil, Eddie sees his innate intelligence. He also recognizes a fellow traveler in the hurlyburly of life.

A movie such as this is often not a viewer's dream, but it is always an actor's dream. Here, an especially strong and well-known cast gets to strut its stuff in ways impossible in a commercial picture. Sean Penn, who once planned to quit acting, shows again that he is one of our finest talents. He becomes Eddie. Kevin Spacey's abilities are well know. Chazz Palminteri is dazzling as Phil. Playing a young street person, Anna Paquin puts another notch in her resume. Robin Penn Wright is commanding in the film's least flashy role. For the first time since 1993's Flesh and Bone, Meg Ryan gets to remind us that she can be far more than a romantic lead.

The one thing that I had difficulty with was the male characters' views on women. To a man, they seemed to relate to women only as sex objects. There are such groups of guys, of course, but I found myself getting increasingly uncomfortable with this point of view. It seemed to take away from the script's higher aspirations. If they were unwilling to try to understand women, how could these men ever understand the cosmos?

Hurlyburly is a difficult and intelligent movie. Still, it is far more accessible than, say, the same years's Eyes Wide Shut, which left even this seasoned moviegoer with a blank look and a blinding headache. It should prove to be a treat to those who enjoy challenging dialog and impeccable acting.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, July 26, 2000

By 

Anthony Brown - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hurlyburly [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This movie most obviously benefits from a flawlessly written script and exceptional acting. The dialogue is written remarkably well and the entire cast (including Kevin Spacey, Sean Penn, Anna Paquin, Robin Wright Penn, Meg Ryan, and Garry Shandling) recites it with perfection, even through long and drawn out, yet very interesting conversations. The acting and direction makes the characters seem like real people, and we are merely onlookers viewing a small portion of their complicated lifestyles in the Hollywood upperclass. Sean Penn gives one of his best performances as Eddie and Kevin Spacey does a great job as the cynical Mickey, though he isn't given as much screen time as he deserves. Meg Ryan and Anna Paquin show up more as cameos, rather than actual characters, but they play their brief parts to perfection. If you can stand watching a movie that focuses on the characters and the story without any action or special effects, than this movie is worth watching.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful, January 24, 2000

By 

leyla (sydney, australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hurlyburly [VHS] (VHS Tape)

What you must know going into this movie is that you will not be passive about it. You will either love this movie or you will hate it. Many people say it drags on, lacks plot, etc, but I completely disagree. It is a movie about modernism, post modernism, post post modernism, all those absurdities of modern artists, especially existentialism. This is a movie about the next lost generation, people living in a world with no comfort for those who find it goes by too fast for them to find anything to feel passionate about. These people are searching for something, anything, to crave, and we as the viewers simply are introduced to a splice of their thoughts, hopes, dreams, etc. Anna Paquin is amazing in one of her first starring roles since The Piano; her progress as an actress is nothing short of spectacular. Meg Ryan finally sheds her ever-present cuteness and dares to take a role completely unlike any of her others, and does it impeccably. The chemistry between Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn is gripping as always, as they slip into new, absurdly off-center roles. Kevin Spacey is stunning. I love that this movie was created by many of the actors in it, I love the intelligence and creativity they gave it. This is one of my favorite movies, but it is clearly not for everyone.