Word: wahlberg
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Chow Yun-fat, the epitome of swaggering suavity in John Woo's Hong Kong crime films, wears his role as a good-bad cop dapperly in this good-middling drama set in Manhattan's Chinatown. He's the tough guy teaming with Mark Wahlberg's sweetly anguished type to battle a local triad. Foley (After Dark, My Sweet), who choreographs the snazziest New York car chase since The French Connection, specializes in close-up portraits of people sweating on the inside. But no matter how dank the moral dilemma, Chow will never break a sweat. In Hong Kong...
Early in Boogie Nights, a new film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) says, "Everyone in this world has one special thing." In the typical coming-of-age story, the young upstart's "special thing" might be his mind, his ambition or his artistic ability. Eddie has none of these qualities: his "special thing" is his 18-inch penis. It is on this broomstick that Eddie rides to the top of the pornographic film industry. Along with Eddie, we enter the disco '70s at their quirkiest...
This is not to say that the members of this clan are immune to such flaws. Yet that is precisely why the trick Anderson and his cast pull off is so admirable. Anderson makes the inherently unlikable lovable, the kitschy worthwhile and the ridiculous meaningful. Mark Wahlberg is excellent as the central character who changes from innocent and stupid Eddie Adams to egotistical and stupid porn star Dirk Diggler. Burt Reynolds seems likely to get a Travolta-like burst of renewed big-screen legitimacy from this role, as plays Jack with such sincerity that we almost believe that his films...
...well. By the end of the film, in a shot that cleverly mirrors the opening disco scene, Jack surveys his "family" and uses a classic '70s word to describe what his life has become in the '80s: "mel-Photo courtesy of New Line CinemaAN ENSEMBLE CAST: BURT REYNOLDS, MARK WAHLBERG and JULIANNE MOORE invite you to their party and hope that you will stay around to help...
...they've been sexually satisfied. His lover and star, Amber Waves (a nicely wasted Julianne Moore), is almost as devoted to the son she never sees as she is to her cocaine stash. Rollergirl (Heather Graham, before whose beauty all gentlemen genuflect) performs sex on skates. And Eddie (Mark Wahlberg, a nice surprise) is just a dim, polite kid, not strong enough for the burden of stardom...