The Pick-up Artist (1987)

Robert Downey Jr. is a New York City Lothario who becomes smitten with a stunning red head(Molly Ringwald, given a chance to star in an adult drama for a change)throwing his whole swinging lifestyle into a tailspin. In actuality he's a schoolteacher who lives with his grandmother and keeps the phone numbers of girls he hits on while cruising streets in his ailing Camaro Convertible which loves to die on him at the most inopportune times. Ringwald is the daughter of a drunk (Dennis Hopper who remains in an incoherent stooper the entire film) with a huge gambling debt she's trying to somehow repay but his ill-tempered bookie (Harvey Keitel) offers her a chance to eliminate it by pleasing a rich foreigner he wants to keep in his favor. Danny Aiello is a pal of Downey's who likes to give him advice although he often doesn't take it(as you'd expect Aiello owns a diner—stereotyped much?). Keitel is his usual intense, dangerous self, having worked with director Toback previously in FINGERS, constantly pushing Ringwald to basically hooker herself to pay off papa's debt. Downey Jr. shows here that he was a star-in-the-making, even though his character is a bit off-putting the way he follows girls like a mutt in heat. Ringwald, I imagine, was happy to star in a film where she gets to portray an adult, her Randy Jensen trying with every fiber in her being to shake off Downey's Jack Jericho and come up with some sort of solution to her dad's situation. This movie has the tiresome trip to Atlantic City where Ringwald tries to win at Blackjack to secure the money needed while Downey, despite her demands to stay away, follows behind—and yes, there's the giant Roulette wheel spin with Hopper's life hanging in the balance, which I can guess you know the result. Ringwald is adorable as always, if a bit more complicated because she has a lot to deal with and doesn't know what to do about her feelings for Downey. Downey has that effortless charm and charisma which has kept him a movie star for quite some time.

I decided to see this because it had some of my favorite actors including Hopper, Keitel, and Downey. Big mistake. This is the worst movie I have ever seen in my life. It is beyond boring and contrived, it is actually painful to watch. If this had been made in the time of Orson Welles heyday, William Randolph Hearst would have left Citizen Kane alone and paid $800,000 to have all the prints of this movie destroyed. After seeing this in 1987, this may have heavily influenced Robert Downey Jr.'s legendary spiral into drug addiction. Sound like its too bad too be true? You be the judge, but be forewarned, I would not risk watching it alone. It is depressing me just to think about it long enough to write 10 lines. Bad, bad movie, bad!

Robert Downey Jr. is husky and young and wiry as a streetwise ladies' man who does more striking-out than scoring, but his attempts are colorful (you can sense he turns women on just by attempting); Molly Ringwald is a good screen-match for Downey playing sassy tour guide whose alcoholic father is in trouble with the mob. So far, so good--and early on director James Toback displays a sweet, screwball side that was never apparent in his works prior to this--but, unfortunately, the convoluted script gets all gummed-up by the second-half, and the leads go back and forth with each other so much that it all becomes fairly ridiculous. Some pre-release dubbing was obviously done to cover the saltier dialogue passages; it looks sloppy, but that's nothing compared to listening to Downey and Ringwald having sex (what was she in real-life, 17?). These two look good together but are far too young for this scenario, which is by turns cartoonishly sordid and melodramatically soapy. *1/2 from ****

I wish there was a zero out of 10, because this movie should have never been made. It is complete crap and has nothing to do with anything. It is also one of those movies with dubbed in words which makes the movie look really cheap, which it probably was. I was drawn in by Robert Downey Jr. and the very cheap price of the DVD (should have been a dead giveaway). It is disappointing to the very end, which I shouldn't even have attempted to watch. Please for all that is good and holy, do not rent, buy, or even look at this movie. Because of the crazy guidelines, I am going to attempt to tell you how much this movie sucks. First of all, Dennis Hopper is in this poorly written, made, and acted film. He should not have graced the movie with his presence. He should stay forever in Easy Rider. Well, I am tired of writing and hopefully this is ten lines. Again, please do not watch this movie---you will waste precious time that you shouldn't.