Review of Very Bad Things (1998) by Hugh J — 02 Feb 2008

I'm a fairly big fan of black comedies. Even movies with dark stuff in it and aren't necessarily comedies, I can find something comical in them. Plus two of my all-time favourite movies just happen to be 'Heathers' and 'American Psycho'.

But while both those flicks seem to have satirical elements in them, catchy and witty one-liners and plots that could go a million different directions providing an air of unpredictability, this movie can go one of two ways.

The "protagonists" end up learning a lesson and doing some good or they get shit on a little bit more. This definitely ends with the latter. In fact, it takes the 'After Hours' route and just has everything that could go wrong, go wrong.

Now I'm not a fan of that type of movie cause usually I somewhat like the characters no matter how twisted they are and I end up sitting through the whole movie hoping they get some sort of win which most of those kinds of movies never deliver.

I just don't enjoy movies where we get two hours of bad shit going down and then at the very end, they throw a little more shit at you. It just doesn't make for an enjoyable movie experience. With that said, I didn't really enjoy this movie.

It's got a great cast; Christian Slater at his psychotic best with a performance every bit as good as the one in 'Heathers'. Jon Favreau as the straight man, Daniel Stern as the conscience and Jeremy Piven as the screw up.

Not to mention Cameron Diaz as a psycho bride and Jeanne Tripplehorn who's usually good. The plot is sorta decent. There's been a few movies with the same premise and this doesn't really do anything different with it but for what it is, it's OK.

The music is also pretty good with a bunch of music fitting the actions going on during the scenes and to top it all off, we get a gratuitous tit shot from the Asian prostitute. Now the problem is, the movie's not very funny.

As I said before, I like dark comedy but this movie just borders on annoyance. Instead of the subtle lines and clever social commentary, we get Daniel Stern yelling for pretty much 85% of his part in the movie in a really squeaky, breathless voice that was just grating.

We get extended death scenes with people just screaming as they're dying. And the worst of all, we get a bunch of loud, obnoxious, completely useless bastard children (one of whom is a cripple and yet, still manages to be an asshole) yelling in every scene they're in.

It's just not funny. I don't think things going wrong is funny. I don't think yelling is funny. And I especially don't think children talking back to adults is funny. All in all, I was disappointed.

We got a great cast reduced to blabbering gibberish and being put down by two fucking douchbag kids and aside from the Asian hooker, we got nothing good to look at except Cameron Diaz being a bitch and Jeanne Tripplehorn.

..kind of being a bitch. Just a disappointing film. And the ending would've been ironically funny if Cameron Diaz didn't annoy the hell out of me with that noise she kept making. If you want to see Christian Slater doing the same schtick he does here but in a better movie, watch 'Heathers'.

And if you wanna see a truly, great, dark comedy, watch 'American Psycho'. Both movies are way better than this. Hell, I can even name a good movie every actor in this film was better in. Slater in 'Heathers', Favreau in 'Swingers', Stern in 'Diner', Piven in 'Entourage' (yeah, it's a show but still.

..), Cameron Diaz in 'The Mask' (yeah, I know but she looks hot in it) and Jeanne Tripplehorn in 'Basic Instinct' (again, she looks hot in it). I had high expectations for this film...but it just didn't deliver.

..shame...