Dogfight

Dogfight is set in San Francisco in November 1963, on the eve of the deployment of a group of young Marines to Vietnam. Eddie Birdlace and three friends, about to ship out, organise a party for their last night in the city, built around a contest they call a dogfight: each man puts in money and the one who brings the least attractive date wins the pot. Eddie turns up with Rose Fenny, an awkward young woman who works in a diner and has little experience of men like him. When she learns what the evening really is, she is humiliated and leaves, and Eddie follows her. What begins as a prank turns into a night the two spend together, and the encounter leaves Eddie changed as he departs for the war.

Nancy Savoca directed, from a screenplay by Bob Comfort. It was her second feature after True Love, released in 1989, and came before Household Saints and, much later, If There Be Thorns; Richard Guay and Peter Newman produced. River Phoenix plays Eddie and Lili Taylor plays Rose, with Richard Panebianco, Anthony Clark, Mitchell Whitfield and Holly Near in support.

On IMDb the film holds 7.3 out of 10 from around 11,000 votes, a solid result for a small drama more than three decades after release. On TMDB it sits at 6.9 from roughly 147 votes, and it also carries a critics' rating of 6.9 from 23 reviews, so critical and audience views of it are close.