A boozy exercise in cinematic self-indulgence that cross-pollinates Leaving Las Vegas, Bret Easton Ellis and the worst instincts of precious Hollywood navel-gazing, writer-director Adam Sherman’s Crazy Eyes at least gives mousy lead Lukas Haas a chance to live out the dream of playing a lothario, if nothing else.

Even though he’s divorced and has a five-year-old son, Zach (Haas) seems to enjoy his hard-partying, Los Angeles lifestyle, abetted by a trust fund that means he doesn’t really have to work. A functional alcoholic who mainly hangs around with his bartending pal Dan (Jake Busey) and juggles a seemingly endless rotation of temporary jock-warmers, Zach finds himself thrown for a loop when he comes across the flirty but withholding Rebecca (Madeline Zima), whom he dubs “Crazy Eyes.” Damaged and no less dependent on booze for escape, Rebecca starts spending a lot of time with Zach, but keeps him at bay, both physically and emotionally (“I might be in love with someone else, I should check…”).

Zach becomes even more obsessed. His parents (Ray Wise and Valerie Mahaffey) pop up for Thanksgiving, and then his dad suffers a stroke that lands him in the hospital. Still, Zach is mainly concerned with having Rebecca; he’s basically blind to everything else in life, even though neither he nor Rebecca completely stop seeing other folks on the side.

Sherman (Happiness Runs) underlines and highlights every point he wishes to make in Crazy Eyes (Zach is yearning for a deeper human connection, don’tcha know), and the tone here is meandering to the point of near-psychosis. Not all of the drunk-acting is bad, but neither Haas nor Zima is able to strongly convey a three-dimensional character. So many of the narrative tidbits herein seem arbitrary, and ergo the film fritters away any chance at making a viewer care about the plights of its damaged souls.

Presumably housed in a regular plastic Amaray case (this review was based on a screener copy), Crazy Eyes comes to DVD in anamorphic widescreen with a 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound audio track. Its menu screen features a bit of flickering fluorescent lights in the bar sign rendering of its title (a nice touch), but apart from trailers of this and a couple other Strand titles there are no supplemental bonus features, which feels especially like a cheat on a movie so purportedly rooted in autobiography. D (Movie) D+ (Disc)