There are plenty of long-lost independent gems from the 1990s that were unfairly lost due to the often-fickle scrutiny of time and trends; unfortunately, The Last Time I Committed Suicide is not one of those unfairly overlooked diamonds in the rough. Nevertheless, presumably because of its inclusion of a still-young and innocent Keanu Reeves—before his extreme Hollywood makeover as a postmodern gunslinging action star—playing a supporting role to an actor known mainly for his supporting roles, Thomas Jane (see Boogie Nights, among others).
An ill-advised attempt to capitalize on the nineties’ rekindled interest in the 1950s Beat Generation, Jane stars as the verbose, sexually rambunctious young Beatnik Neal Cassady. The whole film is supposedly based on nothing more than a letter Cassady once wrote to Jack Kerouac. With such thin source material, it’s no wonder Suicide is such a meandering, insubstantial bore of a movie.
Although Jane certainly has a talent for playing jittery, unstable types, his take on Cassady is obnoxious at best, and Reeves as his needy, older drinking buddy Harry comes off no less boorish and insipid. What storyline there is begins with the enigmatic suicide attempt of his first love Joan (Clare Forlani), which sends the nineteen-year-old Cassady into an emotional tailspin that culminates in getting drunk, driving like a maniac, and playing lots of pool with his buddy Harry.
Not to mention he begins to have amorous inclinations with a series of underage high school girls, one of which “Cherry” Mary (played by 90s indie starlet Gretchen Mol) falls madly in love with him. But a chance meeting with a mysterious woman at a bar leads to an out-of-the-blue reunion with Joan: and this time, Cassady promises to straighten up and fly right by marrying his old flame, which leads to a few tense moments of betrayal involving both Harry and Mary.
Although certainly, the lack of a steady directorial hand here is a hindrance, the dialogue is so bloated with pseudo-poetical platitudes (cringe-worthy lines like “the time is now, and now is all we have!” are uttered with straight-faced sincerity) that one wonders how the man that served as Jack Kerouac’s muse could have possibly been this annoying. The two discernable positives the film has going for it is its polished cinematography—at least in the sense that it eschews the bad lighting choices so many independent 1990s movies foisted upon moviegoers’ optic nerves back then. And the hepcat bebop score is certainly appropriate but is laid on way too thick, not unlike the affected speech of the male protagonists here: every line announces itself as some grand oratorial gesture but inevitably ends up as unintentional comedy.