The Robert Downey Jr. Film Guide: The Last Party (1993)

The good thing about a documentary is that you get to see people the way they really are.

If you’re going to spend all the time and energy to make a film, you might as well have it be something that really reaches out and does more than entertain people. Because uh, because you give a lot of your life to do it, so it might as well really matter.

It’s quite a twelve-step platform this year. We have all these recovering men and women. It’s kind of like one nation under rehabilitation.

Interviews include Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, Robert Downey Sr.

Laura Ernst Downey in Too Much Sun. Robert Downey Sr.’s Hugo Pool, Pound, Moment to Moment, Up the Academy, Rented Lips, America, Too Much Sun,Greaser’s Palace, in Johnny Be Good. Deborah Falconer (ex-wife) in Short Cuts. Richard Lewis in That’s Adequate and Hugo Pool. Mary Stuart Masterson in Chances Are. Sean Penn in Hugo Pool. Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers.

Never need to go to another convention, thank god ... I was such a total ignoramus about not even politics, but anything that had to do with anything else except my own selfish interests. I just thought it would be a really cool opportunity. I learned a lot, and at the same time, in the aftermath, I realized I was all fucking gung-ho about Clinton. There was that bias in the documentary. I was just jumping on the bandwagon. That’s what I learned the most from it—a year later watching it.

Filmed in 1992 in many locations, including Los Angeles, the Deomcratic convention and other spots in New York, and the Republican convention in Texas

Released in theaters 27 August 1993. Rare, available on VHS and some online streaming services. Not released on DVD or Blu-Ray.

Stephen Holden, New York Times: More than an interviewer, Mr. Downey has the impossible task of being the emotional and spiritual grounding wire for the film, which [was] directed in the style of a jeans commercial on MTV.

David Hunter, The Hollywood Reporter: One’s reaction to the film depends on how well one responds to Downey. Rarely do stars open up as he has in this film. Both in what he says and what he shows the audience, Downey appears to be unencumbered by concerns of career or public opinion. Vulnerable and fearless in turn, he never passes for a real journalist, but [conducts interviews without] worthless puffery or ideological myopia.

1. Now that MTV has syndicated the first season of The Real World, there is another way to take a nostalgic trip back to the political landscape of 1992.
2. You shouldn’t even call yourself a Robert Downey Jr. fan if you haven’t seen it.