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This latest attempt to adapt a Charles Bukowski novel into a worthwhile movie chronicles the picaresque misadventures of eternally down-on-his-luck boozer/writer Henry Chinaski. As Chinaski, Bukowski’s literary alter ego, Matt Dillon works his ass off to justify his unjustifiable best supporting actor nod for Crash and, believe it or not, almost succeeds as he lumbers across the screen, so defeated that his posture is buckling and he mutters his dialogue like a man being forced to speak against his will. He loses jobs, he gambles, he beds women such as Lili Taylor and Marisa Tomei, and he drinks. He drinks a lot. If he’s not drinking on-screen, you know he was when you weren’t looking. Considering the fact that it’s pretty hard to watch what this guy is doing to himself, that’s often. But somehow, like Bukowski did in his work, director and co-writer Bent Hamer manages to distill beauty from Chinaski’s determination to plow through all the misery to someplace where his art will be recognized. Unfortunately, while Bukowski managed to find humor in the most extraordinarily degrading situations, Hamer only asks that you laugh from your seat at his black comedy. Dillon’s Chinaski, on the other hand, is humorless.