Film Review

Anthony Peck / Daily Pilot

We’ve all been there -- well, most of us, anyway.

A night out. A few too many cocktails. And then the inevitable and

painful morning after, accompanied by a half-hearted declaration of “I’ll

never drink again.”

Sadly, this sequence of events -- at a much more frequent and severe

level of self-destruction -- is the life story of Newport Beach native

Mark David Allen.

Allen has the dubious distinction of holding Newport Beach’s all-time

record for arrests, having been jailed on more than 100 occasions for

public drunkenness.

Naturally, Newport jailer David J. Sperling had plenty of chances to meet

Allen, a familiar face in the city’s holding tank. So it was basically a

no-brainer for Sperling, moonlighting as a film director, to use Allen as

the subject of a documentary.

Now, just about anybody can follow around a drunk guy with a camcorder

for a couple of days to illustrate the destructive nature of alcohol

abuse. But Sperling’s film, running about 40 minutes, reaches much

deeper.

It covers a period of more than five years, in which viewers are

introduced to Allen and his troubled past, the Newport cops who bust him

and others who have tried unsuccessfully to help him kick the habit.

Sperling even travels to Hawaii to hunt down Allen, who at one point had

suddenly disappeared from the streets of Newport after accepting an

invitation from his brother to start over on the island of Oahu.

When Sperling is reunited with his subject, viewers may be shocked by the

drastic changes in Allen’s appearance, who clearly shows the signs of a

steady decline. They may not, however, be surprised to learn that Allen

had been arrested by Hawaii police more than 80 times.

It is a sad story, one that seemingly has only one possible ending, and

it is unlikely the audience will ever see a clearer view of the horrible,

life-consuming effects of severe alcohol abuse.

In fact, Sperling could probably sell many copies of the film to

Alcoholics Anonymous.

* “Drunk in Public” screens at 2 p.m. today at the Orange County Museum

of Art.