If "Drunkboat" understands anything, it's the louche intensity with which John Malkovich commands a frame, whether staring into space with a cigarette or teetering under the influence of Cutty Sark. In most other respects, though, this self-consciously mannered indie fails to ignite.
Adapted by co-writer/director Bob Meyer from his own autobiographical play, the story drops Malkovich's reformed-drunk Vietnam vet Mort at the suburban house of his long-estranged widower sister (Dana Delany) for a tenuously sober reconciliation. He's recently been in contact with her eldest son, who ran away from home, but she's unaware that the cheery teenager still under her roof (Jacob Zachar) is planning his own departure by buying a boat from a salvage dealer (John Goodman).
