Rated X (2000)

Excellent adaptation.

Absolutely the worst movie.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

I am not a fan of the brothers who dominate this flick, but they seem to play against type well enough that this doesn't matter. Everyone who'd watch this movie knows about the Mitchells at least slightly, so I'll talk more about the way they're rendered here: Emilio renders Jim Mitchell as basically the more mature older brother and Arty is, of course, the free-wheeling schmuck Jim feels indebted to. They make what is essentially "Vanilla Porn" in the sense that apparently none of the more non-mainstream fetishes usually (probably often rightly) considered perversions are visible, like pedophelia, corpophelia, bestiality, rape or snuff is included. And as a result of living something that is considered a societal fringe in the Seventies, they have a drug-induced downfall. Who would have seen that coming?Still, to me, the downfall is played with enough reality (Arty seems to remain slightly sympathetic even during his depths, except for when he expects a spouse is doing someone behind his back) and I'd say sympathy that it felt like a fresh experience to me. But that's just me: I don't watch too much aside from nerdy stuff. Frankly, I think that it beats Boogie Nights because there's no Mark Wahlbergs or Burt Reynolds around, and most important, no Paul Thomas Anderson. Estevez isn't the most humble guy, but at least he didn't approach the material in such a seemingly "I'll make sure everyone pays attention to how well I directed this thing instead of how good the story or things that happen in it are supposed to be." There's nothing really elaborate like that painful three minute opening and not the ton of cutesy dialogue. It's a much more bare-bones production, which I usually like. Plus, I like the commentary track. God help me, but I do.

This film is/was every bit as good as Blow and Boogie Nights(better than Boogie Nights). How this did not get a distributor and had to be shown on Showtime I'll never know. For what ever reason the brother's Estevez were dealt a disservice. This should have been seen on the big screen. I'm sure I will find out but there has to be something behind the scenes as to why this did not get a distributor. The movie was good and the reason it did not get put out was just wrong.

This movie had potential. Maybe not as much potential as Boogie Nights, but potential nonetheless. What really killed this movie for me was the fact that Emilio Estevez tried WAY to hard to be some kind of avant garde director, with fancy angles and cut shots throughout the entire picture. It did nothing more than make me nauseaus.As far as acting, Estevez and Sheen did a fairly decent job of portraying the Mitchell Brothers, however, in the end, the movie doesn't work mainly because they simply just touched on a few of the major events and focused instead on the drugs, which wasn't even very interesting in the first place.There was a reason this movie was on Showtime and not released in major theatres.

I caught this movie on a movie channel not knowing what it was, never even heard about it or the Mitchell brothers. And to tell you the truth I didn't expect very much of it. I have always considered Charlie Sheen to be a quite bad actor and can you name one single movie Emilio Estevez has made since young guns? But to my pleasant surprise the movie turned out to be pretty good. Ok it was a bit slow sometimes, but overall it's a quite interesting story about 2 brothers rise and fall. To bad that both of them lost it and messed everything up, but hey, you can't change a story that is based on a true story, right? I give this movie 3 points out of 5 possible. These brothers life caught my attention I will definitely read the book now.