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The Thing Called Love (1993)

Rate: 4
Viewed: 5/15

ThLove
5/15: Despite the brilliant directorial debut of The Last Picture Show, Peter Bogdanovich had a bunch of failures, and The Thing Called Love is among them.

It's also River Phoenix's final film before his untimely death from a drug overdose on a Halloween night at the infamous Viper Room that was once partly owned by Johnny Depp.

When I watch River Phoenix in the film, I see somebody who's high and wired. He's also sloppy, consistently failing to make eye contact with all of his co-stars. His mannerisms, especially the twitches, are akin to somebody with Parkinson's disease. Too slick to be believable, River Phoenix is miscast as an aspiring country singer.

As for everybody else, they're terrible. Samantha Mathis is no actress. Sandra Bullock is full of shit. Dermot Mulroney is corny. Like River Phoenix, none of them is believable for the least second. Billy, who's played by Anthony Clark, is useless and in dire need of character development.

The songs...my goodness, they're the worst. I can't believe these lyrics were green-lit. That's why the title is misleading as it should be called The Silliest Country Songs You've Ever Heard. Hence, the film took in one million dollars at the box office versus a budget that's fourteen times that much.

All in all, The Thing Called Love, an Urban Cowboy wannabe, is a prime example of how the wrong cast can kill a film.