# Very Bad Things (1998)

### reviewed by
Allan Jenoff

Very Bad Things Directed by: Peter Berg Starring: Christian Slater, Cameron Diaz, Daniel Stern, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Jon Favreau, Jeremy Piven, Leland Orser Running time: 111 minutes My rating (5 star scale): No stars

    Very bad is very apt.

You're a young actor who wants to be a young director. You know a bunch of other young actors who want to be young stars. You haven't any real ideas, but you figure that if you put all those young actors in one movie, it will be just as good as having a real star. And if you move the camera around a lot, it will look as if you were a real director. And if people shout all the time, it will look as if you have a real script. And if your movie is dark and everyone in it hateful, it will look as if you are really deep.

I don't know how many drugs or how much liquor you have to take to believe all that, but somebody involved in this movie does. Very Bad Things is about a stag party gone bad. A bunch of guys, middle class white collar type guys, head to Vegas for a stag. They gamble, snort coke, get drunk, and hire a stripper to entertain in their hotel room. Unfortunately, she ends up dead.

For most of us, this would be a good time to sober up, call the cops, and pray to God they will hush it all up. Given that Vegas is a tourist town and dead hookers aren't a big tourist draw, the odds are in your favour. And the cops are likely to believe it's an accident. After all, they have the word of a bunch of nice middle class guys and only a dead hooker on the other side. But these guys don't take that chance. Even though they are in Vegas, gambling capital of the world, they aren't ready to roll the dice. Instead, they start an elaborate coverup. And it just gets more elaborate, more complicated as things go on.

People start dying left and right, but apparently no one notices. No one investigates, and the most important event in the movie, the wedding goes on as planned.

For a movie like this to work, you have to like somebody in it. You don't like anybody in this film. These aren't people like you and me, these are people like characters in a bad screenplay. One dimensional cretins with just enough wit to further the plot. Not that there is much of a plot. Just one death after another.

Berg leaves no cliche unturned in his fruitless attempt to become a real director. The movie could have been a learning experience for him. but I doubt it. At the screening I attended he spoke and told us all how wonderful the script was and how great the film. I got the feeling he felt that if the AFI had waited another year, he would have beaten out Citizen Kane for the number one spot on the top 100 list.

    Give it a miss.

    --
    Allan Jenoff
    Check out my web page at http://www.interlog.com/~jenoff

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