BEAT (2000) ¢ ¢
D: Gary Walkow
Courtney Love, Kiefer Sutherland, Ron Livingston,
Norman Reedus, Sam Trammell, Kyle Secor
In New York in 1944, a Columbia University student named Lucien Carr stabbed an obsessive, would-be lover named David Kammerer, killing him. In Mexico City in 1951, the writer William S. Burroughs shot his wife, Joan Vollmer, in the head with a pistol, playing a game of William Tell. She died. These two incidents became a part of the history and legend of the Beats, and "Beat" is a movie about them. At least, it's partly about them. A lot of it focuses on the dodgy, flirtatious relationship between Carr and Vollmer in Mexico (with Allen Ginsberg tagging along behind), while Bill's off with a boyfriend in Guatemala. It's mostly bits of conversation between smart, pretentious characters who might care more about each other if they didn't care so much about themselves. Kiefer Sutherland appropriates Burroughs' distinctive drawl but doesn't look anything like Burroughs, and Courtney Love looks even less like Joan Vollmer. Ron Livingston does look like a young Allen Ginsberg, but Allen doesn't get to do much here except mope around and gaze longingly at Joan and (especially) Lucien, played by Norman Reedus. Critical reaction to the Beats has always been mixed, but their impact on American culture in the years after the war can't be entirely dismissed, their art drawn directly from their drug-fueled, bohemian lives. Not much of that comes through in this movie. They don't even seem all that interesting.
