A Brilliant Conflict

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

With a cast that includes Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Janeane Garofalo, many people probably came into expecting a comedy. The trailer also sort of implied this. While Permanent Midnight has its funny moments, it's basically a drama.While this is based on the true story of TV writer Jerry Stahl, it fictionalized a bit. The shows Jerry works on in the movie are stand-ins for the ones he worked on in real life, for instance. Probably to avoid licensing issues.This was David Veloz's first (and to date, only) directorial job and it shows. It's not the direction is bad, but it's certainly nothing special and there are a few places where it's a little hard to follow.This doesn't drag the movie too far down though as it rests largely on the actors, specifically Ben Stiller, who shows any naysayers here that he can do drama. He does a great job portraying someone who's a likable guy with a pretty decent life who just keeps using more and more drugs until he starts freaking out in public, shooting up into his jugular and generally wrecking everything and losing whatever self-respect he had.Despite the subject matter, Permanent Midnight avoids becoming too depressing through bits of humor, a short (88 min) running time and an optimistic perspective.I doubt this is the best movie for scaring your kids off drugs, but recommended for people who like stories about overcoming or are fans of Jerry Stahl or any of the actors.

I think Ben Stiller is one of the most talented comic actors currently working, even though he is often in awful movies (e.g. 'Zoolander', 'The Suburbans'). 'Permanent Midnight' is one of the best movies he has been involved with and features what is arguably his single finest performance. Based on the autobiography of TV hack writer Jerry Stahl, this is a smart, fresh and blackly humorous look at addiction and Hollywood. Stiller has a fine supporting cast here, especially his buddies and frequent co-stars Owen Wilson ('Bottle Rocket') and Janeane Garofolo ('Reality Bites'), the amazingly charismatic star-in-the-making Peter Greene ('Laws Of Gravity'), and comedy veteran Fred Willard ('Best In Show'), who all have small but memorable roles. Hell, even Liz Hurley and Cheryl Ladd are good in this, believe it or not. 'Permanent Midnight' was, like so many other good movies that don't pander to a mass audience, a box office flop, but will hopefully find a larger audience in years to come via video and DVD. I think it is one of the most underrated movies of the last ten years, and highly recommend it.

"Permanent Midnight" is a just another junkie flick (like we need another junkie flick) and not a very good one at that. Character development is superficial at best and the storyline goes something like "connect, shoot up, act stupid, sober up, doing something normal" over and over again. Meanwhile beautiful babes are all trying to jump in the sack with the poorly developed Stiller character for which we're given no reason to care but plenty of reason to suspect writer/director Veloz thinks we're really gullible. Passable, forgettable stuff and another good cast wasted.

I love this movie. I've probably seen it at least 10 times. The last time I saw it, I was at the Red Cross donating platelets. The process takes up to 2 hours, and they let you bring in a movie to watch while you lie motionless in the donor chair. Imagine watching this film with fat needles stuck in BOTH of your arms . . . Yes, this movie is choppy. Yes, this movie is uneven. But it all seems completely appropriate. None of that interfered with my total immersion into this gritty, stylish, and dark tale. Ben Stiller is absolutely fantastic. I found his performance very convincing. I think the best dramatic actors are those who came up through the avenues of comedy ("funny comes from a sad place"). Jim Carrey and Robin Williams are further proof of this -- no one can cry on cue like these guys.Add in other terrific performances by Owen Wilson, Janeane Garofalo, Fred Willard, Peter Greene, Sheryl Ladd, Andy Dick, Charlie Fleischer, and even Jerry Stahl. There were some really shocking scenes in this film, especially the crack smoking scene where they jumped against the plate glass windows. Great film.