Neal Cassady served as a friend and muse for several of the central figures of the 1950s Beat movement, including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, but exactly why this was the case is never made clear in this wildly glammed-up biographical piece from director Stephen Kay. Based on one of Cassady's letters, The Last Time I Committed Suicide portrays a series of events that, if the film is to be believed, committed the young Cassady to the life of a wandering Beat boy. Filmed in a jittery, pretentiously stylized manner (with many unnecessary close-ups and an often confusing chronology), the film possesses an impossibly romantic view of the era, suggesting that stealing cars and sleeping with an unusually large number of women—Cassady's bisexuality is conveniently ignored except by the very slightest suggestion—somehow constitutes rebellion of the highest order. Another big problem is Thomas Jane, who, in the lead role (second-billed Keanu Reeves has only a supporting part), does very little to convey Cassady's allure; Cassady must have been a charismatic figure, but here he most closely resembles Melrose Place hunk Grant Show. You'd be better off reading any number of books by and about the Beats than watching this unaffecting exercise in retro-chic repackaging, the cinematic equivalent of The Gap's "Kerouac Wore Khakis" ad campaign.