D-
Very Bad Things
1998, 100mins, 18
Director: Peter Berg
Writer: Peter Berg
Cast includes: Jon Favreau, Christian Slater, Cameron Diaz, Jeremy Piven, Leland Orser, Daniel Stern
UK Release Date: 29th January 1999
Sometimes you watch a film and just can’t quite get it out
of your head. Positive examples of this over the last few years include
Christopher Nolan’s trippy “Inception” and last year’s invigorating animation
“Rango”. For whatever reason these pictures stay lodged in your stream of
consciousness for days, demanding to be thought about and viewed again when
they hit home video. However there are occasions in which a piece of art can
occupy your brain for all the wrong reasons.
Watching something that’s bizarrely misjudged, yet concrete in its
ambitions can lead to just as much debate and consideration, there’s nothing
quite like a bad film that has all its convictions and hopes set firmly in the
corner of “what the hell were they thinking?”. Anybody can make a bland,
disposable or insufferably dumb flick, but it takes someone special, or
possibly with genuine talent and visionary tendencies to turn in something as
rough and rotten as the sort of work I’m highlighting. “Very Bad Things” is one
such effort, a ridiculously over the top and vile little comedy, pitched so
rigidly in the camp of dark comedy that any sort of artistic sunshine feels
forever absent. Directed by Peter Berg (who would later helm the
semi-impressive Will Smith superhero adventure “Hancock”), “Very Bad Things” is
a fascinating study in misguided storytelling, screenwriting and
characterisation. It’s an incredibly troubling product, a genuinely cruel tale
that skips the laughs and lunges at the most despicable tendencies of man.
Purely for your entertainment of course.
Kyle Fisher (Jon Favreau) is about to wed uptight but
affable Laura (Cameron Diaz), looking forward to the classy service, but
firstly awaiting his Vegas bound Bachelor party. Alongside buddies Charles
(Leland Orser), Michael (Jeremy Piven), Adam (Daniel Stern) and the unsettling
Boyd (Christian Slater), Kyle enjoys a night of gambling, booze and drugs. Boyd
arranges a visit from a prostitute; Kyle declines her services out of loyalty
to Laura, giving Michael first dibs on the frisky escort. However during some
rough sex the prostitute is accidentally killed, but when a security guard
comes inquiring about noise and catches sight of her corpse, there’s nothing
accidental about the way Boyd offs him. Now the guys face a choice. Do they
confess and become convicted murderers and accomplices, or do they bury the
bodies in the Nevada wild? Opting for the latter seems initially easier, but on
their return home guilt arises and suspicions mount, leading the secret to
spiral way out of control.
It’s tough to imagine that anybody either making the film or
distributing it ever thought it was funny. “Very Bad Things” is a portrait of
horrible people doing horrible things for 100 minutes, Berg and his cast smugly
assuming that by aiming for the most depraved tone possible, they’re being edgy
and intelligent. I don’t consider myself a prude and much less easily offended,
but some of the material in “Very Bad Things” is just unspeakably crass, and
the joyless cast only further dampen the supposed party. It’s an unusual
ensemble and not one without value in principal, but on this occasion the
disgusting characterisation and lack of chemistry between them sink the ship.
Slater winks and lies his way through the flick in the style of “Heathers”, but
here he has no Winona Ryder to play off, just a handful of gormless comics
occupying equally distasteful skins. Favreau and Orser are the dullest of the
group and Piven is his usual slimy and unfunny self. More interesting is
Stern’s Adam, the only one of the bunch bothered by manslaughter and murder,
yet so cowardly is the fashion he deals with the situation that it becomes
impossible to engage with him. As an onscreen gang they have no spark or zeal,
it’s a lifeless troupe of clowns mucking around in the sourest manner possible.
Murder can be amusing. Just look at large chunks of the
Coens’ repertoire or even last summer’s “Horrible Bosses” for proof. However
watching Jeremy Piven thrusting into a hooker as she cracks her skull doesn’t
really tickle me that much, less so the sight of an innocent man begging for
his life as he bleeds to death in a locked bathroom. Yet Berg treats these
moments and several others of an equally inappropriate ilk as the set-pieces
for his dark examination of douchebag culture, scrambling around desperately
for giggles amidst the grimy context. A single sequence in the film stands out
as well devised, one of the men’s wives interviewing them to try and understand
the nature of their trip to Vegas. It’s a tense scene, well shot and with the
actors breaking out of their lethargic slump, but even it is sullied by a final
feat of callousness come the end.
The picture breaks into a bloody frenzy during the third act
presenting carnage in the most predictable way possible. It’s a technically
proficient effort; Berg showcasing some of the pizazz that would later get him
inducted into the blockbusting inner circle, but one has to seriously
deliberate over the tastelessness of the material he’s concocted. Maybe if the
movie had generated some genuine laughs or displayed an iota of wit, I might be
more forgiving of its vulgar sensibility, but the combination of weak-minded
farce and tawdry bravado is too much to stomach in this instance, the
picture going down as smoothly as raw poultry or spoiled eggs.
I detested “Very Bad Things”, a disappointing revelation
given that the project has amassed some love in the wake of its admittedly
patchy reception in 1998. Those interested in film and comedy should watch it, merely
as an indicator of how miscalculated things can get. Paired alongside the other
recent and genuinely enjoyable bachelor party flick “The Hangover” it could
make for a fascinating study, a certifiable showcase in proving that being left
of field or politically incorrect isn’t enough, you need good jokes and
performances as well. “Very Bad Things” is an ugly 90s comedy, one best
forgotten, although erasing something so repugnant from your mind is probably
easier said than done.
A Review by Daniel Kelly, 2012
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