The Pick-Up Artist [M]

Jack is a compulsive womaniser, having successfully picked up and bedded a multitude of women. Upon attempting to pick up a striking beauty named Randy, Jack is amazed that his charms fail to work. Soon he comes to the realisation that Randy is the girl of his dreams and he goes to great lengths to prove his love; including raising money to pay off her father’s debts and facing a powerful group of fierce mobsters and crooks. 

It stars Molly Ringwald and Robert Downey Jr., why had I not heard of this movie!? I only came across it when I was working in the “comedy” section at work, grabbed it as soon as I saw it and whacked it on the first moment I got. By no means a remarkable romantic comedy or one even that deserves an accolade of any sort, The Pick-Up Artist was nevertheless a nice little movie, though nothing really something to rave about. 

Jack is a compulsive womaniser, having successfully picked up and bedded a multitude of women. Upon attempting to pick up a striking beauty named Randy, Jack is amazed that his charms fail to work. Soon he comes to the realisation that Randy is the girl of his dreams and he goes to great lengths to prove his love; including raising money to pay off her father’s debts and facing a powerful group of fierce mobsters and crooks. 

I think, when I hired this, I expected it to be another 80s teen romance type of thing along the lines of Pretty In Pink or something. Far from it. I found the film to be rather uncertain and to some extent shaky. The characters were established rather well, but the emotional stories, character histories, and such were haphazardly thrown into the script and therefore, everything seemed rather shallow when, in fact, the story had a lot of potential for getting a bit darker and dramatic. To me, this a story-evolution issue that conflicts with the writers’ restrictions of genre: the writers are set to create a romantic comedy, but the story just has so many elements that are too dark or dramatic and cannot be explored completely. As a result, the movie is just a mass of romantic bits and pieces that don’t really strongly hold together. 

The performances were fine but you do need to be a fan in order to sit through the entire thing. I absolutely love Robert Downey Jr. and I think there was some sort of perving impulse that kept my eyes glued to the screen. Thankfully the movie is not all that long, but I would have liked it more if some darker drama took place or even some climactic fistfight or damsel in distress action. Even the verbal sex scene is a bit of an anticlimax. 

Starring Dennis Hopper, Danny Aiello, Harvey Keitel and featuring cameos from Vanessa Williams and Christine Baranski, The Pick-Up Artist was a light and nice movie, but one that can easily be missed without consequences. Filled with flirting, interesting pick-up lines, drama, crooks, romance, and comedy, it’s a film that I enjoyed, but not one that would make it into the collection. You’re not missing anything if you haven’t seen it.