Cocaine: One Man's Seduction

one of the best and most "hitting you in the face" movies of all time.

on one hand,it is a sad story of a drug user(weaver) who gets so messed up he stoops to blaming his own kid for coke when his wife finds it.

on the other hand..its unintentionally hilarious. there's one scene when weavers walking on the beach on a boardwalk and he drops his keys..he flips out. another great part is when he blows a big presentation because hes so paranoid. a must see. is this thing in print??? it should be. anyone thinking they can do cocaine without having a bad time needs to see this. as said..both serious and funny at once.

when it was first shown as a typical "movie of the week' it was a bit silly..because we were seeing mcloud on dope! i think Dennis gives one of his all time best performances here.. he doesn't overact as he often was known to. hes very cool and realistic. this is what anyone could and does experience with that nasty drug. but what about Dennis? would that people could remember him for more than just duel and mcloud..and gunsmoke. because his rolls(including the infamous terror on the beach) for movies of the week were gems!

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!

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!

A real estate salesman (Dennis Weaver) with career and marriage problems gets hooked on cocaine, and finds that not only does it not help him cope with them, but it makes them much, much worse.

What is not to love about this film? We have a young James Spader and a drug-addicted Jeffrey Tambor. That already makes it good no matter what happens. And then we get to learn about the evils of peer pressure! What we end up finding out is that cocaine causes you to make "lewd offers" to your spouse and encourages you to re-arrange your spices. While not an "after school special", it was a made-for-TV movie that was clearly designed to show how cocaine use can spiral out of control.

I have never used cocaine and probably never will. But films like this are not what make me steer clear. In fact, I found this film humorous in a strange way. Not that it was inaccurate -- it is probably very close to the truth. But there is an unintentional humor not unlike that found in "Reefer Madness".

It could be that the anti-drug movie is one of the hardest to pull off. Even with great setups and decent performances, they can come off as bathos-drenched soap-opera hell ("The Boost" always comes to mind, and it doesn't help when the lead actor acts like he's on crack when he's sober).

"Cocaine: One Man's Addiction," while possibly having one of the most ridiculous titles in TV-Movie history, actually works due to the ordinariness and realism of the characters and plots. There isn't anything here that's going to shock or amaze you: just an ordinary guy sending himself down the toilet and wondering how he got there. But it gets to you, simply because it's so low-key. Dick Van Dyke did something similar with "The Morning After," but it never seemed as life-threatening or desperate as it does here.

Weaver portrays an aging real estate agent who's finding himself edged out of the company he helped build. While he gives his usual competent performance, the real sparks fly from some of the supporting actors, notably Jeffrey Tambor, as a friend of Weaver's whose binge with coke nearly drove him to suicide, and a teenage James Spader, who brings an easy realism (and pain) to the role of Weaver's disaffected son.

With Pamela Bellwood, nicely playing a poignantly injured casual user who initially lures Weaver toward his doom and a mis-cast Karen Grassle, who looks simply uncomfortable throughout.