# Friends & Lovers (1999)

### reviewed by
Michael Dequina

_Friends_&_Lovers_ no stars (out of ****)

Late in _Friends_&_Lovers_, one character says, "Well, this sucks. This _really_ sucks." This realization will come _much_ sooner for anyone with the misfortune of watching George Haas's smug, self-satisfied ensemble "comedy" _Friends_&_Lovers_, about a circle of friends who in some way, shape, or form cross over into the latter territory during a holiday in the winter wonderland of Park City, Utah.

Among those in the cast, if you care (not that you should--or will): Claudia Schiffer, whose debut turn as an aspiring model is enough to make anyone forgive Cindy Crawford's _Fair_Game_; Robert Downey Jr., so over-the-top as to be in his own earth orbit as a German ski instructor; Stephen Baldwin, cementing his reputation as the least discriminating Baldwin bro as a cocky (pun intended) womanizer; and Alison Eastwood, who obviously believes that doing energetic nude sex scenes will be ticket out from underneath her father's shadow (it isn't). There is no structure or dramatic tension to the film, which is just a bunch of aimless scenes of people exchanging witless, pseudo-hip dialogue--that is, until Haas tries to jolt the slumbering audience awake with a farcical fuckfest finale. Too much, too little, and _much_ too late: by the time the end credits began to mercifully unspool, I was the _only_ person remaining in the auditorium, the other five or so people in the audience having wisely bailed somewhere along the misbegotten way.

Michael Dequina mrbrown@iname.com | michael_jordan@geocities.com Mr. Brown's Movie Site: http://welcome.to/mrbrown CompuServe Hollywood Hotline: http://www.HollywoodHotline.com

________________________________________________________ NetZero - We believe in a FREE Internet. Shouldn't you? Get your FREE Internet Access and Email at http://www.netzero.net/download.html

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews