VERY BAD THINGS (1998)
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2004
When black comedies fail, it usually happens due to poor balance
between humour and darker overtones. In 1990s Hollywood black
comedies often didn't turn out to be black enough - dark humour
was often too diluted with sentimentalism, "political correctness" or
cheap moralising. VERY BAD THINGS, 1998 film written and
directed by Peter Berg, was one of rare Hollywood to take the
opposite path.
The plot starts with Los Angeles stock broker Kyle Fisher (played by
Jon Favreau) preparing for the wedding with beautiful but neurotic
Laura Getty (played by Cameron Diaz). Just like most men in similar
situation, he decides to mark the occasion with wild bachelor party.
He and couple of friends go to Las Vegas. The party, fuelled by
alcohol and cocaine, gets too wild, resulting in accidental death of a
prostitute. Before Kyle and the rest of group can decide how to deal
with it, their psychopathic friend Robert Boyd (played by Christian
Slater), complicates things even further by killing hotel security
guard who came to investigate the incident. The group, faced with
possibility of further unpleasantness, decides to listen to Robert,
remove the bodies, leave Las Vegas and forget everything. But their
return to Los Angeles only leads to more paranoia and new
escalation of bloodshed.
In its time VERY BAD THINGS was attacked as one of the most
mean-spirited films ever made and some critics even accused its
author of racism and anti-Semitism. To a certain degree, those critics
are right. Berg seems to take joy in his misanthropy. Many scenes
enthusiastically show how, under certain set of circumstances,
seemingly normal, ordinary and decent citizens can transform into
murderous psychopaths and neurotic wrecks. In doing so, Berg is
helped by equally enthusiastic performers. Christian Slater likes the
opportunity to play villain a while Daniel Stern and Jeremy Piven are
very good as sibling rivals. On the other hand, Cameron Diaz goes
over the top as a woman neurotically obsessed with her wedding.
Berg directed this film very well, but this can't compensate for the
film's main flow - lack of humour. Berg gets away with it in the first
part, when the audience is introduced to characters, still unaware
that there isn't anybody to like among them. In the second part VERY
BAD THINGS degenerate in larpourlartist, albeit predictable, orgy of
violence which would lead to surrealist, pathetic and utterly
unconvincing finale. Berg should be commended for his bravery in
breaking some of Hollywood's taboos but take-no-prisoners
approach by itself isn't enough for good entertainment.
RATING: 4/10 (+)
Review written on September 29th 2004
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society
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