In 1987 when the Brat Pack was in full swing the movie Less Than Zero hit theaters. Based on a best selling book, Zero focused on LA rich kids hooked on drugs and decadent good times. Leading Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy starred as the rich kid who goes to college back East and returns on Christmas vacation to find his high school girlfriend and best friend are Coke fiends about a snort away from an OD. His girlfriend, the miscast but always watchable Jami Gertz, calls him to say he should help his former best friend Robert Downey Jr. Downey Jr. owes the perfectly cast villian James Spader 50k and would rather give blowjobs than give up his habit.
The movie is gloriously shot in the type of oversaturated blue and red colors with tons of diffused light that could only be done in the 80's. The soundtrack is amazing and features the Bangles ("Hazy Shade of Winter") and LL Cool J (Goin' Back to Cali"). It was so good I had a friend that literaly stole the record from the library (if that's not Less Than Zero, I don't know what is). Andrew McCarthy continued with his well practiced bag of acting tricks (Happy=shit eating grin, Sad=wear shades, in all other cases open eyes wide and have them dart around the room with a shocked expression.) Jami Gertz tries to be the model / coked out girlfriend but lacks the charisma or mystery to make the part work. James Spader makes an excellent villian, but then he always did. This movie would be utterly dull if not for one reason-Robert Downey Jr.
When Downey Jr. started appearing in the paper for waking up next to young girls or other odd places in a drugged out haze, it seemed new and exciting to the public. Because no one saw Less Than Zero, no one realized how prophetic or true to life it really was. Downey plays a young guy sliding down the path of drug addiction, taking everyone he knows down with him. He seems hyper, engaging and funny while he captures the pathos and recklessness of drug addiction. His performance is the only human one in the movie, so he becomes the touchstone for the audience much more than the predictable Andrew McCarthy. It helps that the lows to which Downey's character would sink mirrored his own life.
Other than that, there is little to recommend Less Than Zero even twenty years after the fact. I'll always have a soft spot for Brat Pack movies and the 80's movies they specialized in which is why I watched this flick in the first place. Generally speaking, I wouldn't suggest watching this. However, if you want to see the high living, hard partying 80's life that most people didn't really get to live (unless you were in the Brat Pack) there are much worse examples than this one.
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