"Factotum" - A Drunkard's Review

By

Sebastian Bullhorn

I fucking hate going to the movies. I managed to navigate around that shit for about four years already, but just two days ago I met some drunk morons that I call friends, early in the morning at some open-all-night pub, and they told me there was a new Bukowski flick coming out.

Whoa, are you serious? You realize “Barfly” came out like 20 years ago, right? “Yeah, dude, it’s like completely new, although that fucker owes his whole act to Mickey Rourke!” Ah, okay. I mean, SHIT! Now I have to go watch it. Since it’s not a “real” movie I’ll only be able to catch it in the tiny artsy fartsy movie theater downtown during the five days it’s showing. Anyway, I’m all excited and shit, calling everyone I know, all of 15 people, reaching through to a total of four guys, and finally meeting only two of them, bottles of Scotch in tow and everything. Word on the street is that nobody wanted to see it with me, but that’s purely speculation.

To make a long story short, this movie fucking rules. I worshipped “Barfly”, but compared to this it was just the typical Hollywood bullshit. Only that Mickey Rourke was fucking great at imitating Buk. (And they had a shitload of quotes to choose from for that movie, since they didn’t give a damn about staying true to just one story or one novel.)

Anyway, this time it’s Matt Dillon and he’s pretty good at it. The main difference is that this  movie was made for Bukowski fans who’ve actually read “Factotum” (that’s the Bukowski book by the same name, brainiac), as the story is pretty close to the book, and the film makers limited the quotes used from that one novel, except for a couple of random poems. While in “Barfly” you would see the guy fight every five minutes to keep the dumbass audience interested, here you’ll meet a calm, indifferent Hank Chinaski; writing, drinking and betting on horses. And getting fired a lot.

In both movies, both Rourke and Dillon still look way too clean and sober to come off as real alcoholics, though, but I guess you’ll have to put up with that in any kind of Bukowski flick that finds its way to any theater anywhere. Even if it’s just this fucking tiny shithole that charges you €1.80 for a small beer - and you’re not even allowed to smoke. (Which fucking sucks as the number of cigarettes consumed on screen pushes 400 after ten minutes. )

I was wise enough to get drunk before the movie, so I didn’t have to piss all the time, and could cope with drinking a mere two beers in the salon. Despite my slight inebriation I still remember the occasional great scene. For example the greatest break-up in movie history: Hank and Jan are sleeping. Hank gets up and pukes. He gets a beer and sits down drinking it like his life depended on it. Jan gets up and pukes. She gets a cigarette and a drink. Hank informs her that he feels like shit, packs up his stuff and leaves.

I want to add that this could be the best puking imitation I’ve ever seen. Normally it only lasts two seconds, with somebody coughing a little, or there’s two gallons of liquid coming out, like in all those queer teenie bop comedies. Not here. I could taste the bile, watching the scene.

Fucking awesome. What can I say? Read the fucking book. It’s like the second best book ever written anyway. And even if you suck, and refuse to do that, go watch the movie. The other guys didn’t know the original story and still thought the movie was great. So great, in fact, that we headed to the bar across the street immediately after the show ended, and tried to become little Chinaskis ourselves. Not that I had ever done that before.

Let me add something for all the horny fuckers out there: In the end there’s a great stripper at the bar that Hank hangs out in. Great moves, decent tits, and then, to top it off, the movie cites one of the best poems Bukowski ever wrote. Oh, and you’ll see Hank fuck his girlfriend at least two times. Not as good as the puking, but still realistic enough not to be ridiculous.

This movie shouldn’t disappoint any Bukowski fan. And you know it’s rare that any movie adaption of his work is even half bearable. I mean it. At least I mean it now, drunk off my ass. But if you’re planning to watch it sober, you’re not even worth mentioning his name anyway, you straight-edge fag.

Cheers.

PS: I just searched through “Factotum” for a cool quote to wrap this review up with, but instead I ended up reading half the fucking book all over again, and I still don’t know if my favorite parts were quoted directly in the movie, since they only showed it voiced-over in German here. But once again, the fact that I just read this inspired me to tell you to read the fucking book, or you’ll burn in the pits of hell forever. Or something… Piss off.