I really don't get the hype.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

There are few gay, or straight, films which fling such disturbed and desperate lead characters into the sparkly gutter like Mala Noche. That summary is trite at best, but to watch this movie is to fall into a film noir which won't give you any love back. Excellent and gobsmackingly short-ish cash register rings of warning. Don't embrace these sickly, nasty characters, but do get enveloped. You can't help it. Everyone sucks, everyone is dirty, nasty, and sadly dreamy. Gus made a gorgeous pile of human stink with this one, and it is completely addictive. Fabulous film. Gus Van Sant may have jumped the shark with some later stuff, but this, boy, this is good. Fans of grit say: Must see.

Gus Van Sant's debut is like a dry-run for "My Own Private Idaho" made on a shoe-string in grainy monochrome on the streets and in the stores and apartments of Portland, Oregon. It's not about anything other than the passion felt by Walt, a store clerk played by Tim Streeter, for Johnny, a young Mexican tearaway with little or no English who acknowledges his feelings but doesn't reciprocate them. Its free-wheeling, unfettered sensibility has made it a seminal film for both Independent and New Queer Cinema and it's a lot more likable, (and perversely, more accessible), than most of Van Sant's later output. It also makes great use of Tex-Mex music and the 'non-performances' of the three boys who take centre stage have an off-the-wall quality that has nothing to do with 'acting' but feels nicely naturalistic. (All three boys are actually quite engaging in their disparate ways). Short, sharp and sweet.

OK, granted: The movie was filmed in the early or mid 80's I think, and you might even claim that the latino talent pool was not as big back then as it is now. But C"MON! The guys who were cast as the young Mexican homeless boys were HORRIBLE! Spanish is my first language and I could tell that the actors who portrayed JOhny and Robert were not fluent at all in Spanish which for this film it is a MAJOR point since they re supposed not to speak English. I guess that explains the reason why when Johny had dialogue, the camera was not on him, and the times when he spoke and the camera was on him there was no sync. I am 100 percent sure that they used someone else's voice ( a bad actor's at that) to do the voice over for Johny. For someone who speaks Spanish it was PAINFUL to listen to the monotone, emotion-deprived delivery of the lines. I don't know under what circumstances these two horrible actors were cast but I am sure the director did not do a thorough audition process to get the best actors. The actor who played Robert was better at ATTEMPTING to sound better in Spanish. I still don't know if he was fluent in Spanish, which it sounds like he was. And if he was then he was just saying the grammatically incorrect lines given to him by the director without complaining about not being correct. One of the examples is when he is being harassed by the white guy. Roberto says:" Para. No me molesto". Translated that means: " Stop. It doesn't bother me".or " Stop. I don't get bothered". Im sure the intention of the writer was: " Stop. Don't bother me" which should've been: "Para. No me molestes". The only character that spoke good Spanish was the guy who was telling the story of how they crossed the border. And I could bet the reason that being is because probably he really went thru that and he was just being interviewed ( he did not NEED to act)I doubt that was scripted. That part when he's talking, it totally threw me out of the movie, because it had a documentary feel to it and then to go back into the bad acting was like, disconnected. Among other things,it was torture when they had the Spanish speakers dialogue on the background. They kept on repeating the same dialogue over and over and over again! same lines over and over! I guess it would work for non-Spanish speakers, because they just hear a foreign language and they have no idea whats being said. But when you understand the language you get so frustrated that you wanna throw a shoe at the TV and make it shut up. I really like Gus Van Sant's directing but I have no idea, and im very curious to know what pressed or forced Mr Gus Van Sant to cast these horrible actors. Was it pressure from the producers, or did he honestly think these guys were the BEST?

I was fortunate enough to see this at the Sydney Film festival. I am a fan of Van Sants, having seen all his stuff and read his fiction- and I've always wondered if I would ever see this curiosity of a film. And what I expected to be nothing more than a real fledgeling of a film, with only a glimmer of the Van Sant that attracts many to his work- was in actuality a stunning, fully sustained episodic and tender Ka-pow! that was wonderfully made and full of all the visual tricks and flair that makes Van Sants movies so idiosyncratic and so ... well him. This was the biggest delight for me about it. I expected, simply because it is so hard to find and that it has no DVD release that it would be a mere trifle of a film. But it is anything but.I was moved, all the acting was top-notch. The main character was likeably deluded, such a victim of his own desire it was funny and warming at the same time. The Black and White and evident grain in occasional sound inconsistencies actually work for it; it helps draw the detail out of the locale and its people in a manner very reminiscent of Van Sants Idaho and Drugstore Cowboy. There are moments of confusion, of randomness, of erotica and tragedy. The music is wonderful, every camera angle delicately crafted, but never contrived or pretentious- full of humour and warmth. What a joy this film was and to me, seriously one of Van Sants best. Maybe its because I'm a gay man and with the exclusion of his Paris Je Teme segment, and elements of My Own Private Idaho, this is his only overtly gay story. And it plays real, with an almost documentary like realism (for example the scenes of language barriers between the the main protagonist and Pepper)- but then again its almost as theatrical as opera, playing it broad and surreal. I cant praise it highly enough. A real surprise, a delight. I hope it gets seen.