MATT DILLON AND THE MELANCHOLY OF YOUTH

Rusty James : Hey, my brother's the coolest.

Patty : Well, you're better than cool. You're warm.

Although Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze and Michael J. Fox were the more lucrative movie stars in terms of sheer box office numbers back in the 1980's, it was Matt Dillon that promised to be cinema's successor to Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando with his classic brooding look, deep set eyes and gaunt, hollow cheeks.

With Rumble Fish (1983) and Drugstore Cowboy (1989), no American actor at the time could rival Dillon for his laid back, laconic performances of small town drifters filled with underlying existential angst. In many ways he was like a more handsome Jean-Paul Belmondo and brought far greater humanity than "Bébel" to his performances on screen.

“If you're going to lead people, you have to have somewhere to go.” - The Motorcycle Boy

In Rumble Fish, the slow dawning realisation for the juvenile delinquent Rusty James that growing up will diminish his teenage dreams of leading his gang and being the coolest kid in town, provides Matt Dillon with perhaps his most heartfelt and vulnerable performance. Enamoured with the legend of his brother, The Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke), Dillon spends a huge part of the movie in denial at his older brother's heroin use and the corroding of The Motorcycle Boy's hero image that he finds impossible to let go of.

Too strung up to tell him straight, The Motorcyle Boy tries to explain to his younger brother that his romantic view of him is misguided, but it falls on deaf ears until tragedy strikes and Rusty learns the hard way what his cryptic brother was trying to tell him all along.

Clocks are used frequently throughout the movie as a visual motif and the sense of time ticking down on Rusty James's last moments of youth is palpable as he transitions from teenager to young adult before our eyes in this avant-garde and monochromatic rite of passage.

Aside from being Francis Ford Coppola's personal favourite of all his films, Rumble Fish immortalised Dillon as the coolest actor of his time and the movie has subsequently been elevated to masterpiece status by cinephiles, myself included.

Bob : Most people don't know how they're gonna feel from one moment to the next. But a dope fiend has a pretty good idea. All you gotta do is look at the labels on the little bottles.

By the time Gus Van Sant's low-key indie film Drugstore Cowboy (1989) arrived on the scene, it grew an instant cult status overnight as it depicted an eerily authentic account of a drug runner who runs a small crew that rob pharmaceutical stores across Portland, Oregon.

If Rusty James had never made it to the Californian coast and The Motorcyle Kid hadn't been shot, they both might have ended up as Bob, the superstitous dope fiend who becomes increasingly paranoid about his fate, from one robbery to the next.

With it's washed out look, the film works well as a cautionary tale for all drug users and Matt Dillon finds the perfect blend of pathos, humour and sadness for his depiction of Bob, the most likeable druggie in the history of film.

Later in the film, after taking heed of the warning signs, Bob seeks personal redemption by going clean and befriending Tom the Priest (William S. Burroughs). It's in the wistful section of the movie that we see the unexpected range of Dillon the actor, as he brings out the increasing warmth of Bob's character after being an opioid zombie for most of the movie up until that point.

And when his criminal past finally does catch up to haunt him, there are few better scenes of self realisation for a character in film than in Bob's final scene in the back of an ambulance.

He nearly pays the same deadly price as fellow addict The Motorcycle Boy in the end, but perhaps Bob's spared by his better angels and his own genuine desire to be free of heroin.

I feel as if Drugstore Cowboy was the last of Dillon's cool period which began in 1983 with Rumble Fish. The fact that the two films share a similar drug infused melancholy makes them obvious cinematic bedfellows and epitomise that indefiniable languid energy that made Matt the hippest actor in town.

I only wish the Coens had found a role for him in one of their films, I sense they would have made magic together.

Perhaps there's still time.