Establishment of two different Beats

HEART BEAT (Hollywood - 1980) THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE (Independent- 1997): 

THE BEAT MOVEMENT - CONTRAST BETWEEN TWO FILMS 

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

The Beat generation started in the early 1950's with the advent of Jack Kerouac's groundbreaking novel "On the Road" - the story of Jack's wild adventures on the roads of America with his untamed friend Neal Cassady. "Heart Beat" is the first film to truly focus on Jack's relationship with Neal and his wife, and it is a semi-successful portrait. "The Last Time I Committed Suicide" is the superior work, which focuses on Neal Cassady's life and times before meeting Jack Kerouac. One film says more about Beat poetry or Beatniks than the other, yet they both have a sense of time and place.

"Heart Beat" has the miscast John Heard as the shy outcast Jack Kerouac, who tries to shake his Establishment origins by embarking on a journey from New York to San Francisco with the ex-convict and troublemaker Neal (Nick Nolte). Together, they drink, fight, hitchhike, smoke pot, and share Neal's society girlfriend, Carolyn (Sissy Spacek). While living in San Francisco, Jack starts to write "On the Road" using his friends, especially Neal, as models for his improvisational, rambling story.

"Heart Beat" has the right look, the right clothes, the right cars, the 
perfect atmosphere, but not the right attitude. The film is too 
conventionally directed and scripted by John Byrum allowing for little 
pizzazz or energy. It's hard to tell that the film is about the birth of the 
Beat movement because we barely hear or see anything relating to the Beat 
period.                                                                       

The actors don't help much. John Heard is adrift and unconcerned throughout - 
a far cry from the book's depiction of a lusty, charismatic individual who 
learned to strip away his introverted side. Heard exacts the same deadening 
tone through the whole film. Nick Nolte is a little out of his element 
playing the cocky, flirtatious Neal - he just acts like a funny pretty boy. 
Sissy Spacek is not allowed to do much except exude sunny smiles. Only the 
late Ray Sharkey brings any energy or enthusiasm as the Allen Ginsberg-type, 
Ira.                                             

"The Last Time I Committed Suicide" is a big improvement on every level; a lively lark of a film about the early life and times of Neal Cassady. The charismatic, perfectly cast Thomas Jane plays the wild, frantic Neal who works a night job at a tire company, and begins to get ideas about an archetypal, rebellious character who supersedes all "intellectual" men. In the meantime, Neal hangs around with his drunk friend, Harry (Keanu Reeves) at the pool hall with various girls. Neal also has a troubling relationship with Joan (Claire Forlani), a secretary prone to suicidal tendencies.

The beauty of "Last Time I Committed Suicide" is that it not only has an authentic sense of time and place, but it also contains a great performance by Thomas Jane (the drug dealer in "Boogie Nights") combining humor and pathos. Jane brings the cocky, arrogant side of Neal alive, and is pitch-perfect on Neal's pseudo-intellectual babble speeches about life and love ("It's a metaphor, man!").

I know I'm in the minority on this one but Keanu Reeves remains one of our most underrated actors; he delivered powerful performances in films such as "Permanent Record," "Much Ado About Nothing and "My Own Private Idaho," if anyone cares about his talent. Here he delivers one of his best, surliest characters in the form of the drunk, bloated Harry who reminds Neal that marriage doesn't figure in his equation. Also worth noting is the underused Claire Forlani ("Basquiat") who shimmers each time she appears on screen in a largely underdeveloped role.

"The Last Time I Committed Suicide" is briskly directed by Stephen Kay, and he employs jump cuts, black-and-white and color cinematography, freeze frames, zooms and slow-motion to emphasize the rambling, inconsequential, and languid sense of Neal's life. The Beats considered themselves beatific and weary (or beaten) from trying to shield themselves from the Establishment. "Suicide" comes a lot closer to capturing that movement than the dull, Hollywood fluff of "Heart Beat."