Cocaine: One Man's Seduction

I'm not going to go into details about this film other than to say that some people (myself included) find this film very funny in places...however you will find it *very* hard to find! Its never going to be on TV I would have thought because of the title etc...I'm hoping for a DVD special edition but that's just being silly! To sum up..a couple of people I know who know a fair bit about the subject matter didn't like the film - they seemed uncomfortable, maybe the truth hurts?. Other people I know found it boring. However a select few found it hilarious in places...yes it is a "back from the pub/club film" - if you see it, buy/beg/borrow/steal it! It will interest you to know that this film is endorsed by Nancy Reagan..not my words, the words on the video cover!

McCloud ditches stetson and tin flute for funky '80's leather-Jackson-jacket as old Mr Charles begins to burn a hole in his fashion sense as well as pocket. A tour-de-force performance by Dennis Weaver as dead-beat real estate loser Eddie Gant, transformed into a Caddy-driving high-roller thanks to Bolivia's finest export until inevitable excess leads to a pathetic, whimpering finale, a hospitalised Weaver unable to look his family in the eye whilst bubbling, "I'm so ashamed. I'm so ashamed!" Marvelous!

It's too bad more high-quality TV movies like this aren't being put out on DVD - though, at least, this film is currently available for streaming on Hulu and other sites. This is by far the most concise movie of any kind to deal with the pitfalls of cocaine addiction, much better than big-budget theatrical treatments like "The Boost" and "Blow." Dennis Weaver gives one of his best performances as the harried, self-pitying real estate agent who is convinced by a slightly disturbing (and oh-so-eighties-looking) couple that coke will help him make millions in the luxury home market. In fact, Weaver is so good it has always struck me as strange that his obituaries never even mentioned this work. The supporting cast is excellent (except for Karen Grassle as the cloyingly sweet simpleton of a wife) with James Spader being cast against type - at least, future type - as Weaver's clean-cut son. In fact, were a remake of this movie ever to be produced, it would make perfect sense to have Spader play Dennis' part. A great movie that is well worth looking at online ... or, if you can hunt it down, on VHS!

Dennis Weaver showed unusual shrewdness in picking scripts for television movies that he starred in. He consistently picked top-quality projects like The Ordeal Of Doctor Mudd and Bluffing It. This is another example of a quality tv film that rises above the usual fare. "It will kill her if she finds out...it will kill him if she doesn't" was the ad-line for this movie. Weaver plays Eddie a nice, unassuming real estate agent with a wife and teenage son with the typical hang-ups. Its hard to believe that a 47 year old man could be this foolish, but somehow Eddie gets hooked on cocaine. It starts innocently enough, a kooky acquaintence gets him to try a little. He is basically insecure about himself and cocaine makes him feel like he is on top of the world. He hides his coke in his shaving kit. Its like a snowball rolling down a hill and it just gets worse and worse. You feel like screaming at this man "WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU IDIOT!!!"His wife finds his coke stash and blames his son and in the most pathetic scene in the entire film, Weaver has to "explain" himself to his son. (Oh I was under so much pressure, thats why I used it!). It reminds me of Going For Broke with Delta Burke. Finally it all comes crashing down on Eddie as his heart flips out, and this scene is really frightning when they rush him to the emergency room. His son finally tells his mother the truth that its his father who is the addict. The most pitiful part of the whole film is when they wheel him down the corridor and he cries to his wife and son "OH PLEASE DONT EVEN LOOK AT ME IM SO ASHAMED!!!" As well you should be!

David Ackroyd tells Dennis Weaver the same thing that John Kapoles would say to James Woods in THE BOOST... that they need a boost... which means cocaine... and while both that movie and this TV-movie (that came out before) both got bad reviews, they're both, well... very addictive pieces of entertainment...

Watching a hippie get high is like watching a fish swim... but seeing an otherwise conservative Willy "Death of a Salesman" Loman type blasting coke up his nose is always fun to watch, and of course quite rare, and Dennis Weaver, known for playing either tough or frantic roles, kind of balances both here...

His good wife's Karen Grassle, his good son's James Spader, his semi-wild buddy's Jeffrey Tambor and the truly wild office flirt, who introduced him to the dealer to gave him a boost, is Pamela Bellwood, so the cast is sublime...

But what makes this work is the realistic arc into his addiction and how the drug is treated here: first helping his fledgling sales (the best part) until the monkey starts showing, aka, he becomes a scene...

The more Dennis does coke the more he strays from McCloud and morphs into the zany motel worker in Touch of Evil, and overall, whether soberly depressed or high as a kite or crashing like one, does a fantastic job, not overacting like he could have... meaning, he really seems high on coke, not some old actor putting us on.