The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)

I wasn't sure I'd ever watch a movie about a pornographer, no matter how esteemed it is. The fact that Miloš Forman directed and thought it his best work (above One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus?!) upped my curiosity.

The first scene, depicting prepubescent Larry and his brother Jimmy as rural Kentucky moonshine vendors in 1952, feels out of place with the rest. I guess the point was to show their long-time dark entrepreneurial partnership and Larry's attitude problem. From there, the film skips to their ownership of a failing strip club (by which time they're played by Woody and Brett Harrelson, respectively), which they try to remedy with ads that become the basis for Hustler magazine. The next several years see Larry in multiple court cases (not all about porn) and, yes, worse troubles.

An early thought of mine was that if the filmmakers were trying to get me to like Larry Flynt, they were bombing. It's not just his bad taste in entertainment (about as unpleasant to watch as The Wolf of Wall Street) or his questionable moral convictions (including those in a rather bizarre religious period); he's a big jerk to people in general. It doesn't take much provocation for him to fire a high-level employee, he makes no effort to hide his contempt for judges, and he's always childishly blunt. No wonder he never had the popularity of Hugh Hefner. Next to him, I largely preferred his stuffy opponents -- even Jerry Falwell.

But then I considered the title anew. We're among the people; maybe we're supposed to find him despicable. He himself freely admits to being so. The salient message is that that doesn't matter. Letting jerks have their platform is the price we pay for freedom of speech and the press. And while vulgar communication has only increased since 1996, it remains a small price in my book.

For this reason, I relate best to Larry's lawyer, Alan Isaacman (Edward Norton), who doesn't like Hustler or Larry's behavior but continually defends him, albeit repeatedly wanting to back out. Alas, this character is where the movie deviates most from reality: He's a composite of multiple lawyers, who clearly lacked Alan's staying power with regard to Larry. That said, he does deliver a key speech verbatim from the Supreme Court case.

Also of note is Larry's employee-cum-wife, Althea. Courtney Love's past as a stripper and then-present as a druggie made her apparently perfect for the part. Thankfully, she had to stay clean for the part, and she credits this with getting her life back on track.

The other value, more or less, that I see in this film is highlighting what had set Hustler apart from competition. Larry saw Playboy articles as a mockery of the readership, which makes me wonder what he thinks now that Playboy has dropped the nudity. Hustler attained an availability previously unseen for porn in at least its home state. It included ostensibly humorous cartoons of traditionally family-friendly characters getting naughty. And it tore into any individual the staff didn't like.

I cannot agree with Forman's opinion, as this is his only picture to make me want mouthwash. Its 2 hours and 10 minutes seem excessive. Nevertheless, I'm basically glad it exists.