I seem to be the only one.

agreed. i had that feeling all the way through the movie. he spoke like bukowski but acted like retarded. ruined the movie for me.

Mickey Rourke hung out with Bukowski quite a bit before filming and had the opportunity to study him closely.

You may want to read Bukowski's "Hollywood". It is an "auto-biographical" novel which covers the time period in Bukowski's life in which the film was made and he discusses the production and the actors quite a bit. Although he changes their names, you are able to figure out who is who...of course, he may have embellished a lot of things and it is always difficult to determine the veracity in any of his "auto biographical" novels when he chooses to portray himself as the alter ego, Henry Chinaski. He admitted a lot of the things in "Factotum" and other books did not happen in reality and that some of the characters are composites of real people in his life. While Bukowski/Chinaski most certainly found themselves in their share of brawls, both usually tried to avoid fisticuffs and could neither deliver or withstand the kind of beatings you see portrayed in the film.

Anyway, if you have ever seen any film footage/interviews/poetry readings of the real Bukowski, you will see that he WAS a real character. He was a multi-faceted and talented personality and most definitely an "over the top" type of guy at various times. The main inaccuracy I found in the Barfly characterization was his overall kindness, gentleness to people. In actuality, Bukowski was far more of a misanthrope, he did not suffer fools very well, if at all (absolutely zero tolerance for BSers, one of the original "keep it real" types of dude), and one can argue that Rourke was closer to portraying the fictional Chinaski than the real Buk, but as I said, I think he made him gentler than the Henry of the novels.

As for his walk, I remember someone saying that Buk looked like he was trying to walk with a red hot poker shoved up his nethers and he was almost always drunk....I mean always...like around the clock. How would you expect someone like that to look like walking? Still, there is something to be said for someone who could live to 73 after abusing their bodies the way he did. He chose to live nearly homeless for over 50 years (although he actually held a steady job with the US Postal Service for a couple of decades), ate poorly (I recall reading about Jim Morrison that if he was hungry, he would order fruity drinks, sounds like something Bukowski might do also), almost never sought medical treatment for his many falling-down-drunk injuries/illnesses, and drank more than just about any other well known personage in history (quite a competition to win there).

After living the kind of life he did, it was leukemia that finally got him, not any of the myriad conditions that often befall a chronic, lifelong alcoholic. Cheers Hank.


Edited to add: Another thing occurred to me. Mickey Rourke did not resemble Bukowski in any way other than their pitted/scarred visage. Bukowski was much taller and very lanky, whereas Rourke is of average height and heavily built, more or a mesomorph to Buk's endomorphic stature. Buk's face was homely, large nose and ears, cold piercing blue eyes. Rourke, of course, was incredibly handsome with very fiery dark eyes. As I mentioned both had almost disturbingly bad skin, Bukowski's due to an extended serious illness in youth and horrible giant, puss filled boils (which required well over a year of the dermatologic treatments of his time, described in detail in "Ham on Rye"...one can almost smell the oily medications and bandages, he describes them so well...I digress...again). Anyway he had a pretty bad case of acne. I recall Rourke claiming that for several of his very early years his diet consisted largely of candy which destroyed his teeth and damaged his skin...not to mention the thousands of face blows in his boxing forays prior to Barfly. Rourke's skin is even stranger now after the plastic surgeries. Yet, I cannot imagine anyone doing a better job as Bukowski than Rourke...perhaps Gary Oldman, definitely Oldman as I think about it because he just such a brilliant actor..and although he was actually from a previous generation, I'm thinking someone like Paul Muni could have done a bang up job, too.

To all my friends!!!

No, he was not brain damaged in the least.