Cracked Up (1987) (TV)

User Rating:

4.5/10   

Director:

Karen Arthur

Writer:

Peter Lefcourt (writer)

Release Date:

26 May 1987 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Seventeen-year-old track star, John Owens, has never used any drug stronger than pot, until he meets...

Plot Keywords:

Crack Cocaine | Friendship | High School Athlete | Drug Addict | Running

Cast

Edward Asner	...	Rev. Vincent Owens
Raphael Sbarge	...	Chris
James Wilder	...	John Owens
Marilyn Jones	...	Terri
Richard Holden	...	Ed
Kim Delaney	...	Jackie
H. Richard Greene	...	Coach
F.J. O'Neil	...	Dr. Eckhart
Richard Frank	...	Resident doctor
Scott Burkholder	...	Doctor at track
Toni Sawyer	...	Woman
Margaret Howell	...	Hooker
Bobby McGee	...	Paramedic

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Company:

Aaron Spelling Productions

Movie Connections:

Features Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

It makes you think....

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This was a groundbreaking tv film because it was the first one to deal with crack cocaine addiction. I remember there was a parental discretion advised message put in when this film was first shown on tv. This film is a notch above the typical "disease of the week" tv film. It is very gritty and realistic and hard hitting. What I mean to say is its truer to life. Its the story of two young high school students who are best friends (there is a funny scene in the film where they are watching Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and they recite the scene line by line where they jump off the cliff and yell "oh s#$%", its the only funny moment in the film). One of the young men is a gifted athlete who has never abused his body until a friend turns him on to crack cocaine. The scenes showing him smoking crack and obtaining it are so graphic because they show the horrifying hell of the drug addict's world. He goes out into the night onto dark streets and mingles with hookers and the scum of the earth to obtain this drug for his addiction. This film pulls no punches I can tell you that!!!The scene where he has a respitory attack from freebasing is frightningly real. I felt so angry that this gifted young man would put this crap in his body! He goes to the emergency room and a doctor chews his ass he tells him "Your really smart you had an attack from smoking this garbage, why dont you just keep puffing away well pull the sheet up over you and you'll spare us all a lot of grief...I have kids younger then you coming in here messed up on this stuff and I don't need it because there are people coming in here who aren't trying to kill themselves!" This doctor may not have had much of a bedside manner but I completely agree with him! Edward Asner is magnificent as always as the addicted boy's father. I want to point out he is a loving father who doesn't realize the truth about his son. SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT! The boy runs in a race after he has taken crack cocaine and dies of a heart attack, only then does the truth come out. Asner makes a touching speech to his congregation in the end about the importance of realizing this horrible problem. I would have liked for the film to have had a happier ending instead of this one where the other boy makes a moving speech at his grave at the end. This film was made in 1987, the year after the young basketball star Len Bias died of an overdose of crack. I think our young athletes who have so much to gain and so much to lose need to heed the warnings of this film. This was one of Kim Delany's first roles as the pusher and she gives a great performance. Watching this film reminds me of a poem I read once about cocaine. The poem had a line that went "listen to my words and please listen well...if you ride with cocaine you are headed for hell"