Boogie Nights

For the first ninety minutes, Boogie Nights was the best movie in recent memory. The characterizations by the ensemble cast were excellent, the tone was enjoyable, the material interesting, and the technical aspects superb. At about the time when they did the scene with the firecrackers, I started to get uncomfortable. While a powerful mood element, it made me jumpy and went on so long that I was squirming in my seat, wishing I could be somewhere else. The movie did nothing to make me comfortable again for the rest of the run. If I'd walked out early, I would be singing the praises. Instead, I am left remembering one of the scariest scenes in any movie, and this when I expected to be entertained by comedy!

At over two-and-a-half hours, I found Boogie Nights a bit too long, pun not intended. While the opening was very amusing, the downward spiral of the last third felt protracted, especially with the freaky tone the score, previously filled with danceable hits from the era, took on at that point. This is almost certainly better than any other movie made about a character whose main feature is the size of his genitalia, but I wish it had stayed with the light tone it started out with.