Drugstore Cowboy is the best thing Matt Dillon’s ever done. In a movie about a loosely held together “family” of drug addicts Dillon is flat and unpretending and his performance always hits home. Those were the people I grew up around.

Mostly, it’s a road movie. A bunch of druggies addicted to whatever they can get wander through Oregon and Washington looking for goods to steal. They have a well-choreographed routine where someone causes a diversion and someone else steals all the drugs they can grab. But someone dies–someone always dies–and they have to figure out how to get the body out of a hotel stocked with a sherrif’s convention. And then William Burroughs shows up as a junk-addicted priest.

Gus Van Sant made an honest movie, and while it might not be the most uplifting of midnight movies, that might just be the best way to see it.

Drugstore Cowboy is playing Friday and Saturday night at midnight at the Egyptian, located at 805 East Pine St.