-Open with a scene of Jami Gertz, Andrew McCarthy and Robert Downey Jr. graduating from high school. Everybody is so happy and full of life.
-Smash Cut to six months later, McCarthy comes back to LA for Christmas break and finds his girlfriend Gertz has not only slept with his best friend, but is not a crack snorting model (I know that's a redundant description). But even more dramatically Downey has in the course of six months bankrupted a record label, become addicted to smack, and owes $50K to drug dealer James Spader which he has no hope of repaying. Spader of course makes him become a male prostitute in order to get restitution.
-We have an hour of Gertz whining at McCarthy to help Downey (even though the film gives no reason why he should other than the fact that they were high school friends), even as Downey keeps getting deeper and deeper into trouble.
-Rehab scene where downey gets clean after one night of detoxing.
-Cut to Palm Springs, Spader acts Spadery, he an McCarthy exchange blows, then McCarthy drives off in his convertible with Gertz and Downey.
-Downey dies on the drive home
-Funeral
FIN
Trust me this description makes the film seem much more interesting than it actually is. I don't mind bleakness (I am someone who's watched Requiem for Dream more than once) I just ask that the desolation have a point, or at least be artfully rendered (like Raging Bull). With Less than Zero we actually have a rather puritanical anti-drug PSA (I guess), but it has none of the dark humor or energy of American Psycho and Rules of attraction (more recent films based on the works of Brett Easton Ellis) which also dealt with the shallowness of materialism but were also, you know, entertaining. Whatever I'm done, I'll just say that Less than Zero equals the number of minutes I felt weren't a waste of my time (zing!).
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