THE WILD LIFE [DVD]

Prosaically filmed, The Wild Life isn't particularly wild but is worth a look if you are curious to see the results of an early script by Cameron Crowe, probably written when he was 24/25. You can also see the back of his head as one of the cops in a diner, and his former wife Nancy Wilson as another cop's wife.Remember those urban myths about microwaving poodles? Want to see some 1980s hair? This might be the film for you. But if you want to see a film that really captures what it was like to be just out of school in America then skip this and get Richard Linklater's superb  Dazed and Confused  set in 1976.Several characters in The Wild Life appear drawn from real life (including his videocam bearing mother). The little "Don't call it Nam, it's Vietnam" kid is very funny, especially his squeaky voice and he's the main reason to watch this film. There is also a cameo appearance from a turkey-chomping, Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood who takes the meaning of party crasher to a whole new level.This film is not available on DVD because Eddie van Halen, who provides some of the soundtrack, won't allow the rights to be transferred to DVD. Yet here it is on a DVD overdubbed in Spanish but with the original English soundtrack also intact. Picture quality is as you would expect with a straight copy from VHS

Compared to the other the many teen films made in the 80s, 'The Wild Life' is seen rather rarely. It has never had an official DVD release in the UK or US (although it saw release on US laser disc, way back when). You'd think given the principal cast (Eric Stoltz, Chris Penn, Lea Thompson, Rick Moranis), having being written by Cameron Crowe ('Jerry Maguire, 'Vanilla Sky') and boasting an impressive musical score by Eddie Van Halen, it would be easily obtainable.There are several reasons why it may not be available at the time of writing.Despite having a great cast, the material with which they are given to work is rather poor. The film is a wall-to-wall barrage of crassness, with poor attitudes to relationships and sex, which combined with Chris Penn's overbearing portrayal of 'have a good time all the time' style jock Tommy just makes the film agonizing. Almost every one of Penn's scenes - although supposedly played for broad laughs - is irritating in the extreme, while Stoltz's character Bill is just spineless. We're supposed to pick him as the film's central sympathetic character and yet, he doesn't give the viewer any real reason to like him.The film also explores a particularly nasty and seedy relationship between Anita (Lea Thompson) and a policeman (a moustachioed idiot cheating on his wife). Their scenes are particularly grim from the outset and then become more so once it is revealed that she is underage.The only person who survives this debacle with anything resembling dignity is Ilan Mitchell Smith, whose portrayal of a chain-smoking, Viet Nam obsessed fifteen year old with major attitude is rather fun. It's a pity that Smith's second foray into major motion pictures was ' Weird Science ' [the weakest of the John Hughes teen flicks even back then; now, it's just a bit creepy and borderline paedophilic].80s teen comedies/teen right-of-passage movies from the 80s often dealt with things in a heavy-handed manner, but they seldom come more unsophisticated than 'The Wild Life'. It makes its closest predecessor 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' appear to be the very height of sophistication.Almost thirty years on, it's all too obvious why its screenwriter Cameron Crowe has all but disowned this cringeworthy, desperately sorry mess.