User reviews

Back in the hazy days of grip/electric life, I got a call to work as the BB Grip on my 2nd (and last) Abel Ferrara film - "The Blackout". I accepted the gig with one non-negotiable caveat - I would never be willing to enter what I term "the meat grinder" (defined as any space within 150 feet of the madman auteur). "The Blackout" IS Abel Ferrara....albeit a PG-13 version. In a sense, the experience of making the film was an act of performance art...art lived as actual "life" or perhaps life lived as a Bosch nightmare...on the one hand, it was genius; on the other, pure madness. What remains is a snippet of documentary into the soul of AF.

Abel Ferrara sometimes befuddles me with his work. The Blackout especially seems like it's something out of a drug-induced dream. Perhaps this isn't always something to shy away from, especially in the name of 'art' or whatever. But in this case he's treading some ground he's already gone through, with some variations. Just a few years before he also made a tale of excess and a lonely emotional cripple (Bad Lieutenant) and a tale of the medium of film used to disparaging effect (Dangerous Game). This time a sort of weird fusion of the two happens, with a little more melodrama, about a Hollywood actor played by Matthew Modine who is an drunk and does his share and other shares of drugs, and is in love with a woman named Annie (Beatrice Dalle, oddly beautiful). But due to excess between the two, and a failed pregnancy, she splits, leaving Matty to his own devices, which is to do more drugs, more booze, wallow in depression with "video-film maker" Mickey Wayne (Hopper, perfect at the eccentric roles that define description).

The difference between a film like Blackout and Bad Lieutenant is in how he treats catharsis. There's something intensely moving about what the Lieutenant goes through, how far he goes that he can somehow even try for redemption. In Blackout, Matty sobers up, gets a new girlfriend, and a year or so later keeps getting dreams of murder with his former love, and it drives him back to Miami and into the same alcohol-fueled despair. For some reason I wasn't as taken in with the character's struggle this time, despite the intense quality of Matthew Modine's performance. Most times he's very good, and only a few times he felt like he was play-acting at the role of a man running off the tracks of himself. I wanted his character to get resolution and to face his conflicts, but Ferrara's style gets in the way. Not so much that it's unwatchable, and it's never exactly boring. It's just... missing something a lot of the time.

The Blackout has its moments. There's a real-raw quality to Dalle when she is on camera with Modine that is very effective. Hopper, again, takes a small role and amps up the perversity to a fever pitch, which makes a big climactic revelation with his Mickey to Matty all the more amazing and staggering to watch (complicit in his actions, sure, but not below him). But its own fever-nightmare quality, sometimes impressive and awesome in a Lynch-style, other times bogs the narrative in itself. It's not even so much pretentious as it is Ferrara indulging so much in this character's loss that we eventually lose sympathy for him. His goal for catharsis is admirable, though the depths of hell that he and the director sink to don't make it any easier.

Is it under-appreciated? To an extent. I would say I was a fan of the film, up to a point. But there is a reason it feels like a minor work in Ferrara's cannon; he's done work like this before, better, stronger, with more of a visual focus. Then again, it may also be a film I'll want to return to in years time, to get in to the darker corridors of the character's downward spiral into himself. As a punishing character study, the effort's appreciated. 6.5/10

We're all stuck with narrow selves through the day, doing our best to mind our part in the noisy, incoherent narrative of life, organizing a myriad worries with one eye at the clock. At nights however, some nights, we dream, have passionate sex or watch truly mind-bending movies, drawing fresh water from the well of deep, mysterious non-self which is the great dancefloor where lovers meet their dragon.

So here's a film about a man haunted by a half-remembered night from his past, who wakes up inside a dream to find himself. The film begins and ends with shots of the protagonist in his own primordial sea, the sea of clarity and dissolved self. He is a famous actor, to stress the roles and guises of that weekday showbiz self we carry with us everywhere. A lot of time is spent around film sets and cameras.

The film is split in two very clear halves, a usual trope of films about memory since Vertigo; the long, blurry Miami night of sexual obsession and going back 18 months later. Overt drugging and boozing insert the dazedness of mind. The meta-aspects of the work involving a sex video being made and 'looking back' through cameras are thin and obvious. And Ferrara's attempt at a script-less improvised feel among the actors does not pan out in the least, not solely Modine's fault this.

My guess is that it does not pan out because Ferrara is not a genuinely curious, patient person like Altman who takes pleasure in the tentative brushing of characters, Ferrara is eager to get to the bleeding soul. I don't have to reach out to his other films to confirm this, here's a film about yearnings but only as acknowledged through an overbearing sense of misery and self-pity.

The obvious self-reference. The emotional bluntness. The shouting and partying as some acidic edge. These are all the same, short narrative distance away from the viewer. The film can be described as David Lynch films Le Mepris but all that French, Godardian baggage are as cumbersome now as thirty years prior. So in narrative terms, it is a modest failure.

And yet I recommend this to you on its power to enchant with its visual fabrics. There are all sorts of those:

1) the sex video as in-sight of our guy's hallucinative desires, and grainy handcamera footage as memory, fixing the mind. Dennis Hopper anchors this part as director, channeling both his Blue Velvet and Last Movie chaotic selves. 2) raw, cutting intimacy around the lovely Dalle. 3) warm coziness in New York, with smart usage of Claudia Schiffer as token of bloodless normalcy. 4) the b/w, Nouvelle Vague- inspired interlude at the beach.

You may settle in one or more of those. I settle in the Miami reverie, not the pleasure-seeking itself but those fleeting drive-by shots of nightlife and cloudy views from balconies, the gauzy loss of self and story. Marvelous, marvelous mood. If you mute the drama, it can sink into you.

This was the worst film I have seen in quite a long time. I usually like Matthew Modine. But, I absolutely hated him in this. In fact, the only decent actor and likeable character was a NON-actor - Claudia Schiffer! For the 1st hour of this film, I was still wondering 'who the hell are these people and what's their story?!' I can't believe I sat through the whole thing. It also repeated lots of footage. Sometimes showing it on film; then showing it on video an hour later. I thought a lot of the dialogue was improvised. And, this made for some awkward moments.

(actors can't all write / think on their feet).

This is a dreary, confusing piece of soft porn masquerading as art. After watching it, I wanted back the life I'd wasted on it. Maybe it has a profound message in there somewhere but I doubt it. The film is as self-absorbed as the people it portrays. And self-absorbed is never a pretty sight.

I will say this- Abel Ferrara makes good, slice of real life movies mostly from half baked.scripts. The Blackout joins that list, a movie even more darker than the underrated, and so harshly criticized, Dangerous Game, and with a similar haziness, and atmosphere, to the one he did called, The Addiction, one AF film, I didn't particularly like. This movie could even serve as a severe warning, to how drugs, booze, sex, and blackouts, make a deadly cocktail of destruction, where in this case, there's no turning back, for our leading man, Modine. He plays a lesser known, down and out, Hollywood actor called Matty (catchy) now hanging with the bottom crowd of actors, filmmakers, of course, led by a somewhat shady director, yes, you guessed it, Hopper, who indulges in sex orgies and filming borderline porn, with girls half his age. One scene right near the end, showing him in a familiar, if cliche'd Hopper anger, almost took it's toll on me, partly due to the late actor being such an unappreciated talent. A list model, Claudia Schiffer dabbing in the acting, doesn't fare bad as Modine's new girlfriend. His former one, Dalle, caused him much distress, and again, you'll see why these vices, suck and have such irreparable consequences. Again, the message in this movie, is that indulging in these vices, can only lead to destruction. What I love about The Blackout, is the less is more, concept, the ambiguous factor, leaving us trying to fit the pieces, while wanting more. The Blackout is a cool AF film, with a poster that kicks arse, and really makes for a quite engrossing drama, it's last scene of a washed away Modine, cooly metaphoric. It's a solid made film that boasts, professional, and real performances, and Hopper bragging about remaking that 1982 vaguely known adult sex drama, Nana, instigates a few chortles. On the whole, a definite recommended view, and Schiffer is cute, and so is Annie 2.

Dreadful flick from all aspects. I had to lagh at seeing a review rating it 9/10. by "acid_grinder". Turns out this is the ONLY film this person has reviewed, so I guess he/she was a crew or cast member or had a friend or family member who was. Nothing positive to say about this garbage. A shame to see Matthew Modine in it, perhaps he needed some fast cash for little real work. FAILURE. 2/10.

I really think that this film is underrated, since I enjoyed it quiet a lot.The unique Ferraras atmosphere is present in it, and i didn't find it any confusing. Grait acting especially from Denis Hopper is pleasant to watch, and a good soundtrack makes this film even better thrill.

I would advise it to people who like David Lynch, not for surrealism, which is not present here, but for the created mood and atmosphere. Not a regular Hollywood stuff. Althou the plot is quiet easy to follow,Ferarra's ability of doing things his way makes it a great experience for the audience...

Good film, but maybe not for everyone

my rating: 9/10

"Video is the future!" So tells us madman Hopper. He could be right, if you take to drugs and booze. Only Abel Ferrare can attract big time actors for sleaze and plotless movies. So open up and enter the void where you may find meaning to this interesting piece of art trash!

After the magnificent 'The Addiction' (1995) - If you like vampires you must see this movie - Abel Ferrara bring us one of the worst movies that I've ever watch...

Definitively "the drugs don't work" (quoting the verve) and I think that Ferrara had probably an almost O.D. before making this movie. The plot is comparable to a cheap afternoon TV soap-opera and the actors... Modine is OK, Hopper is almost good, but the rest of them are just to bad (Claudia please stay in the passarelles).

This is a movie that I wish I could give 0 in IMDb ratings.

Excellent movie about obsession, love and addiction. Too complex for most American (ie. Hollywood) viewers to grasp it, at least that's what I think when I read the average review here. Obsession often goes hand in hand with a tendency to addiction. This is well shown here through several tragic events. I love this movie for being real and no happy ending but losers only.

Madman Hopper could be right as he captures the decline of an ego actor, Matty, who loses a lover and falls into the bottomless pit of booze and drugs. He wakes up from this blackout to find himself in a mystery. Only Ferrara can convince top line actors to appear in his sleaze plotless movies that send you into a void of meaningful trash art!

This is one of the 10 WORST films I've ever seen. It's my humble opinion PRIVATE JOKER (Matthew Modine) suffered a nervous breakdown in the filming of Full Metal Jacket and never recovered. The Blackout is totally forgettable. PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE was far more entertaining and easier to watch. Lol

This was obviously not one of Dennis Hopper's or Director Abel Ferrara's finer moments. According to box office receipts....this trash bombed at the box office. That tells the viewer something. Suggestion: If you want to watch two movies filmed in Florida... go with BODY HEAT or WILD THINGS. Both are tremendous. Each have substantive plots. These films have great actors. William Hurt or Kathleen Turner are unbelievable in BODY HEAT. WILD THINGS has Matt Dillon, Bill Murray, Kevin Bacon, Neve Campbell, Robert Wagner and Theresa Russell.

No one can make guilt look as beautiful as Abel Ferrara. In 'The Blackout' he drags you down into a mud of obsession, self-loathing and substance-abuse, showing you that anxiety can be a trip in itself. The timeline is torn and bent out of shape, and it feels like half the movie is a flashback. Combine that with several layers of superimposed tripping and artistic handheld video footage of erotic dancers and you have something resembling 'The Blackout'. The acting is almost as excellent as the direction. Matthew Modine plays surprisingly well as the tortured Hollywood actor, and both Beatrice Dalle and Claudia Schiffer play their (albeit flat) characters flawlessly. I feel however that Dennis Hopper has started regurgitating what has become his only personality, and it wears thin. I usually love his performance, but in this film I could have done without him. Some will stress the need for a clearly defined plot, thereby completely dismissing efforts like this. A shame, since Ferrara is one of the few directors who can convincingly create a view into the depths of human depravation. The film is filled with great visuals, and carries a very recognizable Ferrara-look, feel and theme.

I've seen this movie many times and I always enjoy watching it. Abel Ferrara is one of my favourite directors because he's not afraid to turn the volume up full blast and go all the way with the material. The Blackout is a completely crazy movie jammed pack full of drinking, drugging, sex and violence all set in Miami. It stars Matthew Modine who is rather good and Dennis Hopper gives the movie its X factor. How Abel Ferrara managed to get beatrice dalle and claudia schiffer in this i don't know. I get why it was shown at Cannes because I think the French would enjoy this one due to its shock value and raw explicit content. Definitely check this one out. Nobody would have the guts to make this now - same as Bad Lieutenant (Werner Herzog did but he turned it into a comedy) - no Director goes as far as Ferrara did in the 90s.

I don't understand all the negative reviews at imdb about this movie. There are a lot of things I liked. First, the camera techniques are wonderful and capture that floaty feeling when a person is high, confused, and purposeless. Second, i love the idea of a person blacking out during a critical moment of their lives, and feeling the need to reconstruct the events in order to know themselves. This movie did a great job of using this device as the plot. Third, the ending came as a surprise...it is not revealed until the last 10 minutes and it comes as a surprise that feels quite right.

I might add that I loved the scene when Modine drinks again, alone in a hotel room, and feels that familiar, egotistical feeling, as if drinking and getting high are enough to make a person important or substantive.

I thought this was an interesting, psychological movie. I agree that some of the scenes were not necessary or especially redeeming, but Matthew Modine's portrait of a confused substance-abusing actor was brilliant - the best thing I've seen him do. There's a scene where he takes a drink of vodka after a year of sobriety that is just incredibly convincing. If you liked (appreciated) Leaving Las Vegas, you should check this one out.

Lots of people seem to hate this film, but I think it is one of his strongest. Modine and Hopper are a great team. Ferrara does a fine job of summoning up the brooding menace of suppressed memories and bad love. Dennis Hopper takes time off from being a pantomime villain, and becomes genuinely scary for sheer decadence instead. The sunshine and sleaze of Miami are perfect counterpoints to one another.

Claudia Schiffer lets the side down a tad, being only nice but dim. Oh, and the Schooly D title song is not really all that. But mostly it hits the spot.

Neurosis and character antipathy do not make for commercial success. THE BLACKOUT bypassed cinemas in the US, and here in Australia. The multiplex monster has no room for mavericks like Ferrara.

As there are no others quite like the rebellious Ferrara, he takes liberties from his own catalogue. This time, there are shades of SNAKE EYES (1993), and it pre-empts NEW ROSE HOTEL (1998). In form though, it owes much more to Hitchcock, and VERTIGO.

Like VERTIGO, THE BLACKOUT masquerades as a thriller, but is more concerned with the nature of identity. Relocating to Miami, the film is aesthetically great, though Modine looks (justifiably) clueless. The axis of the film is the concept rather than plot and the clash of high-art pretension with low-brow sleaze is conscious.

Some ideas don't come off, and the form of THE BLACKOUT is awkward. But if it is too cold and removed for most filmgoers tastes, it is still a showcase for an uncompromising, daring director, willing to upset accepted conventions.

The biggest disappointment is that his invention is left in this case to an unheralded release, and will go largely unnoticed.

Abel Ferrara's "Blackout" stars Matthew Modine as Matty, a self-loathing addict and Hollywood actor. Essentially a feature length short story, the film watches as Matty attempts to both crawl his way out of addiction and atone for an event which happened during a memory blackout. To say any more would be to spoil Ferrara's plot.

Suffice to say that Ferrara's aesthetic perfectly echoes Matty's hallucinatory mindset. Hazy and trance-like, and set in the slime-world of a neon-lit Miami, the film moves like a lava lamp. When he's not salivating over drugs and booze, Matty's knee deep in strippers, beautiful women and pornography. This, of course, all echoes Ferrara's own life; he was himself once an addict and pornographer.

"Blackout's" plot eventually becomes something akin to Hitchcock's "Vertigo". Here Matty is revealed to be a deeply disturbed man who chases doubles and who hungers irrationally for ghostly women. Unsurprisingly, Ferrara's portrayal of an addict/alcoholic is sympathetic and crackles with authenticity; Ferrara knows his material well. Strange for a film which features copious female nudity, the film sympathises with its women. Ferrara's nudity may be gratuitous, but is rarely erotic. The film co-stars a mostly inept Dennis Hopper and a occasionally raw and powerful Mathew Modine.

7.9/10 – Worth one viewing.

It takes a while to get into the movie's mood - Modine's druggy trawl through a razor-sharp Miami is not very well differentiated despite Ferrara's excellent handling, teetering at the edge of surrender to the prevailing decadence but always retaining a distinct alienation and fascinated disgust. Later on the style becomes more tightly formal and controlled, befitting Modine's cleared up state, and Ferrara's portrayal of his obsession and disquietude is very effective in a more conventionally expositional way. Towards the end the mechanics of the ultimate revelation really take over, but Hopper's final long profane shouting fit at Modine after he learns the truth is too hard-hitting to be set aside, and the high-risk final image is oddly touching - the movie is a plausible account of a true lost soul grappling for stability in a world of temptation and internal darkness, with neat (albeit stunt) casting.

What is real stimulating about an Abel Ferrara movie is that, whether you like it or not, it'll never leave you indifferent. In my point of view, "The Blackout" is not among the better ones, I'd even call it a failure, but has some great moments and several points of interest. After all, it comes from Ferrara, one of the most personal looks in cinema today, and what comes from a great director, even if it's not that good, at least it's worth trying.

Be aware: it's difficult to come into "The Blackout" because it's basically confusing (too much I have to say). But even if it's not well handled, this style is coherent with the argument as far as Ferrara wants to bring to images the point of view of an alcoholic during a monumental hangover.

If you are capable of going through the first thirty minutes, you'll be rewarded with an stimulating reflection about addiction and the limits between fiction and reality: the key of the main character's enigmatic hangover seems to be found in the filming of an experimental movie... another excuse to reflect on the dark side of movie making and the status of the director.

Try it. Maybe you'll like it or maybe you'll end leaving it in the middle, but at least, this film will make you react in some way, which is not very usual in cinema today.