200 Cigarettes

If you’re reading this review to find out how good “200 Cigarettes” is, well, it’s okay. Definitely worth a rental, or maybe even a cheap matinee. If you’re reading this review to find out how good Courtney Love is at acting drunk, let me tell you, ol’ Court could act circles around other famous screen boozers like Nicholas Cage (“Leaving Las Vegas”) or Michael Keaton (“Clean and Sober”). Courtney Love (lead singer for the band Hole and hereafter referred to as Love:Hole) plays sloppy pre-party drinking like a pro. Oh sure, Love:Hole looks like they just scraped her face off the sidewalk in most scenes, but who hasn’t looked that way around 11:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve?

In “200 Cigarettes,” Love:Hole gets to scream, whine and tongue-prod co-star Paul Rudd in a toilet stall. What’s not to enjoy? As for the rest of the movie, it’s about a bunch of New Yorkers making their way to a party in Manhattan on New Year’s Eve 1981. They all get caught up in hi-jinx on their way to the party and the plot achieves minimal tension from the question: is everyone gonna miss the party?!?! “200 Cigarettes” all-star cast includes blandly handsome Ben Affleck as a bartender with cheez-ee pickup lines (to a woman: “Do you like your eggs scrambled or fertilized?”), Christina Ricci who played freak girl Wednesday in “The Addams Family,” and Goldie Hawn’s daughter, who looks and tries to act like mom.

There’s lots of cool 80’s music in “200 Cigarettes” and Elvis Costello himself dashes through a scene like a streaker who forgot to take his clothes off. So go see it, if you can’t find your own party to go to.

Bill Eisele

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