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Body Shots Review by
Cynthia Fuchs
You
know those movies that make you ask, "What were they thinking?" Those
movies that make you wonder what any self-respecting writer or director or actor
might have had in mind when they agreed to pursue the project, to point the
camera, to say the lines? And the best thing about asking such questions while
you're watching it is that it distracts you from what's going on o screen? Alas,
this is one of those movies. Maybe
they're thinking that a movie about date rape written by David McKellar (American
History X) and directed by Michael Cristofer (Gia) comes with a
measure of built-in controversy. Or that it will generate meaningful public
discussion about date rape. Then again, they might be thinking that Body
Shots, chucky-full of sex and violence and gorgeous young white bodies in
various states of undress and undulation, will advance their careers, or at
least their exposure. Whatever
they're thinking, the movie is not likely to spend too much time on a cultural
radar screen, given the current surfeit of so-called "youth" images on
big and small screens. Ostensibly, Body Shots takes a dim view of its
protagonists, self-indulgent 20-something professionals loose on the LA
wild-nights club scene. But this critique -- unsubtle as it is -- is propped up
by a certain... how shall I say -- salivation. Its
schizophrenic attitude resembles that of the "issue" episodes of Beverly
Hills 90210, that lecture on the evils of raves or drunken sex, while also
treating them as sensational car-wreck-like escapades. Actually, 90210 is
more watchable than Body Shots, because it respects its characters (no
matter how cheesy or trashy they may seem to everyday humans) and takes pleasure
in their lessons learned. The movie, by contrast, seems frankly to despise its
protagonists, which makes it difficult for you to care much about them. Body
Shots
opens by introducing The Crisis (which is not to say that the movie doesn't
presuppose that its 20-somethings don't live in a constant state of moral and
social crisis). A beautiful blond, Sara (Tara Reid), arrives at her friend
Jane's (Amanda Peet) condo, mascara running and forehead bleeding from a gash of
unknown origin. Sara says she's been raped by her date, a self-adoring Oakland
Raider named Michael Penrosi. On second thought, "date" may be too
strong a term, in the sense that the film plainly deplores the ways that young
people go out in packs and go home in one-night-only couples. There's no doubt
here that Sara has paid a terrible price for her carelessness. She's
obviously been drinking, and she's also obviously been hurt in some way. You're
asked to interpret what you see, but you only see moments: unlike Jane, you see
Sarah drive hysterically in the rain, skidding and screeching in her upset
state, and you also see that Sarah's cut lip is the result of her slipping on
the steps to Jane's building, not a beating. She looks battered and horrified
enough by the time she falls through the doorway ("I screwed up!")
that Jane righteously goes into protective mode, holding her, smoothing her
hair. When Sara lashes out at Jane's new almost-boyfriend Rick (Sean Patrick
Flanery, Sarah Michelle Gellar's no-sparks romancer in Simply Irresistible)
and he calls her a bitch, Jane does the correct best-friend thing: she tells him
to get the hell out so she can take Sara to the hospital. From
here the film flashes back several hours -- in a sequence salaciously titled
"Foreplay" -- to show how everyone has arrived at this awful place.
Four girlfriends go through their giddy preparations for a night out. There's
Sara fixing her make up and Jane adjusting her little strappy dress, there's
desperate-to-get-laid Emma (Sybil Temchen) watching her friends and bleached
blond-aerobicized Whitney (former weather girl Emily Procter) donning her
waitress costume (she delivers trays of high-potency jello shots to dancers at
the club where they're all headed). Meanwhile, the guys go to a bar to start
drinking: Rick and his relatively shy office mate Shawn (Brad Rowe, currently
appearing in TV’s Wasteland) hook up with Big Mike and the group's
designated Man Show representative, Trent (Ron Livingston), who arrives
at the club wearing golf shoes and knickers. Intercut
into this set-up are shots of the characters talking to the camera in that
faux-confessional mode, philosophizing about sex, fear of commitment, and more
sex. No one wants to fall in love; almost everyone wants a fun night out, and
absolutely everyone worries about how he or she appears to the others. These
short-hands for Intimacy and Disclosure invite you to dismiss the characters
rather than empathize with them, because their self-analyses are so fraught with
banality. For example:
"If there's pussy on the menu, I'm there," or "It's not
about getting close to someone," or "It's like you're born with a
certain number of hard-ons," or "I like to come, that's my favorite
part, so shoot me." As
the night proceeds, no one gets anywhere near what he or she wants, much like
they didn’t on Melrose Place. Shawn likes Sara but watches in frozen
shy-boy horror as she takes off with Manifest Asshole Mike. Rick likes Jane and
vice versa but they both get so drunk that they can only collapse on her bed.
Emma drinks three bottles of wine and ends up fucking Shawn in the parking lot,
so that she can hate herself in the morning. And Trent goes home with Whitney,
who delights him with some bondage routines, then finds himself in the gutter,
almost hit by a car. As for Sara and Mike's story, you get to see both versions,
neither necessarily believable. Conveniently, Rick and Jane are both lawyers, so they (along with the cops) can listen to the different stories and warn their respective friends about the legal consequences of lying or being unsure in court (to her: your past will be dragged out in public; to him: your career might be shot). The film doesn't present any new insights into this morass, it only rehearses derogatory cliches: he says she's a psycho and a drunk, she says he's a bully and rapist. Neither Sara nor Mike actually remembers what happened, so the film pretends not to cast judgment, to make you decide. But the grander indictment made by Body Shots involves a contrived version of decadent youth, the version that gets self-styled experts on virtue all excited. Funny, though, it does make you appreciate 90210. Contents | Features | Reviews
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