High Life (2009)

Overrated

Fantastic!

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

What an unexpected Great Movie! Having come across this movie and noticing Timothy Olyphant in the cast, I decided to watch. Another fantastic movie that did not get press. Shameful.Excellent acting. Each character was well crafted, quirky and emotive. Timothy Olyphant rocked as Dick. Each shot showcasing spot on facial expressions and genuine likability. Rossif Sutherland glides on the screen with charm and wit; hands down his best work. Joe Anderson was perfectly cast and so money, even with his "one lung". Stephen McIntyre made it hard to believe he was acting it was that good.This was a stellar ensemble cast. Story was tight. Editing fantastic. Music kept the viewer involved and geared. Well paced with no slow parts. Consistently comedic interwoven with drama.The joy of this movie is its slice of life character realism with their flaws just drawing you into their world. No perfect car chases. No crazy stunts. One very funny car honking scene.This is one of those few movies I will watch again and again any time.

After I watched this film, I checked out the trailer for it on the DVD. The trailer makes High Life look as though this is some sort of action thriller. What it really is, however, is a low wattage, dark comedy about 4 junkies on various stages of the junkie evolutionary scale that succeeds by never asking for any sympathy or understanding for its characters, only that you be entertained by them.Dick (Timothy Olyphant) is a scruffy morphine addict and ex-con working as a hospital janitor in 1983 when his scruffier, sullen and violent ex-cellmate Bug (Stephen Eric McIntyre) shows up. Bug quickly gets Dick fired but Dick doesn't hold it against him at all, which tells you a lot about both men and their relationship. With no work and no prospects and a horse that shows up in the middle of his rundown apartment, Dick comes up with a plan for a big score. It's so big, he and Bug can't handle it alone, so they've got to recruit Donnie (Joe Anderson), a sickly addict who's developed a scam where he steals people's wallets and uses their ATM cards for easy money before putting the wallets back, and Billy (Rossif Sutherland), another addict with the looks of a high school heartthrob and the good luck to never have gone to jail.Dick's big plan revolves around the repairmen who service ATM machines and it actually seems like a decent criminal idea, until it goes wrong from the very beginning and launches Bug into a shooting spree and leaves Dick covered in pink dye, waiting for the cops to show up.The most interesting thing about High Life is the picture of junkie society it paints. Dick is a high functioning drug user that the others cluster around and unthinkingly look to for leadership. They all consider him smart, but Dick's brain is pretty well fried. All he can do that the others can't is think farther than 5 seconds ahead. A step down from Dick is Billy, who is the sort of addict that's cruised through life without anything all that terrible every happening to him. He's physically and mentally unscarred but his lack of suffering has left him incapable of taking anything seriously, even his own impending death. On the next lowest rung is Donnie, the meek little petty thief who's just going from hit to hit with no thought of the future. At the bottom is the tough but emotionally fragile Bug, who can't even function in normal society, though it's not at all clear whether his drug use has anything to do with that. The way these four men fit together in an informal social hierarchy is kind of fascinating, all the more so when drastic changes in fortune make all of Bug's weaknesses into strengths and turn all of Dick's advantages into drawbacks.This is also a consistently amusing movie. It may not be laugh out loud funny but it you can't smile at stuff like Bug asking Dick about mutual friends, only to be told they're all dead and that Bug killed one of them, maybe you need to get high on something. Timothy Olyphant is delightful as a guy who used to be smart and now rummages through the drug-addled remains of his brain for inspiration. Stephen Eric McIntyre also does a very good job showing how Bug's temper and lack of forethought go from flaws to advantages based on the situation.High Life is a nice little piece of work. It draws humor and a bit of humanity out of the harshness of life, without getting too full of itself or expecting its audience to care more than they should. This is worth watching.

This is low down fun. It has a very well-scripted, plotted, and thought through feel to it and there really are worse ways to send your time.It reminded us a lot of Australian cinema, where losers just keep on losing but just more and more outrageously, and it is a film that makes you laugh mostly 'cos it ain't you.All the characters are exactly that, characters, and all of them are nicely done. Everything from the get go just works and the take on the 80s is pitch perfect - no Reaganomics and Wall Street here, this is 70s hangover time to perfection.A fun little movie with heart, drugs, and great, great incompetence...

yeah. yeah. yeah. for me, it's the best dope shooter movie since drug store cowboy. but spun was really good too. but anyway, drugstore cowboy made me want to shoot dope, but this flick made me want to flush it all down the toilet. it is a big bummer. no glamor at all.high life, shows that dope draws many types of people together in common junky endeavors--primarily getting high, but also in doing time.these guys don't just share the junky drive, they also share the junky attention span. they're like two year olds--the world flying by them doesn't exist past six hours and the need for the next bump.and timothy olyphant, man he's good. i'd watch a half hour infomercial if he was in it. and hopefully he'll just keep getting better--that is if he isn't pulled off course by some home-made junky fix, or he just gets burned out on all that Hollywood crud.i really liked this, it's a good flick. the characters are well developed, but that's kinda easy--you probably know all these guys already; except i hope there's no bug in your life. cause' if there is, chances are you're living this movie and not watching it.