Review: Very Bad Things

Here's the scenario: five guys in Las Vegas. Vegas, baby! For one last orgy of booze, blow and, sure, a babe. Well, the babe ends up impaled by a bathroom hook, the hotel security guard is stabbed to death with a corkscrew, the bathroom is suddenly a bloody haven of dead corpses, and there are five guys who are coming down very badly from their high. Very Bad Things, indeed.

Actor Peter Berg (The Last Seduction, TV's Chicago Hope) scripted and directed this gory farce. It all begins so innocuously: Kyle (Jon Favreau) is about to marry the girl of his dreams, Laura (Cameron Diaz), though she's more in love with the concept of getting married rather than marrying him. She's not too happy about this last hurrah in Vegas. First of all, she loathes his friends: Robert Boyd (Christian Slater), the smug leader of the quintet; Charles Moore (Leland Orser), the eccentric mechanic); and battling brothers Michael (Jeremy Piven) and Adam (Daniel Stern) Berkow. Second of all, Kyle still has to straighten out the wedding chairs situation. Third of all, she hates his friends.

But back to the bodies in the bathroom. What to do? What to do? Boyd offers this option: bury the bodies in the desert. Or call the police and hope that only Michael, who had accidentally and unknowingly killed the stripper while they were having sex, goes down for the crime. The desert or the police? What do you think? Besides, Boyd argues, "take away the tragedy of the situation, take away all the moral and ethical complications," when all is said and done, "it's just a 105-pound problem." "Surrender," he continues like some demented drill sergeant, "is not an option. Understand not my words, but follow my orders." It's gut-check time. So the bodies are severed into body parts, stuffed into suitcases, and driven out to the desert in the dead of night. In the midst of their gravedigging, Adam insists that they be properly buried: the body parts must be appropriately reunited. Fine, Boyd and the rest comply. "I have her lower leg and his upper leg and they do not go together!" Moore freaks.

After a nightmare of a night, they return to sunny suburbia and pledge to lead good lives. Needless to say, it doesn't turn out that way. Tongues beg to be loosened, paranoia hits fever pitch, and bodies just keep piling up. And, to top it all off, Laura adamantly refuses to cancel the wedding. "I have waited 27 years to walk down that aisle," she barks to Kyle, "and I will not be derailed!" Diaz is a veritable hoot and more potent here than in There's Something About Mary, the surprise summer flick that entrenched her in superstardom. Though her role is brief, she runs away with it and awashes Laura in chipper acidity. When Laura finally reaches the moment she's long waited for, Diaz transforms it into a march of triumph. Do you recall that memorable moment in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence when Daniel Day-Lewis' character, who is deeply in love with Michelle Pfeiffer's scandal-ridden countess, realizes that his angelic twit of a wife (a magnificent Winona Ryder) has been a manipulating conniver all along? The devil burned in Ryder's eye and a similar moment occurs in Very Bad Things. This blond, seraphic goddess displays a smile befitting the devil's daughter.

Berg's direction, given the chaos he plunks his characters in, is assured and specific. The bachelor party is a particular highlight -- dialogue overlaps, the actors rip into their characters' basest natures; there's a kinetic energy that adrenalizes Very Bad Things, only in the end does it begin to wane. Piven, Orser and Favreau shine but Stern is a standout; his Adam winds himself up so tight, he can't help but fray his nerves. Jeanne Tripplehorn, as Adam's staunchly suburban wife, has a showdown with Slater that has to be seen to be believed. Slater has always made derangement charistmatic but, where he used to strike one as Jack Nicholson Junior, he now stamps Boyd with his own imprimatur. Age appears to have anchored him; it's not all flash anymore, there's depth. To be fair, Slater has always been one of his generation's finest. Film such as True Romance, Untamed Heart and Jimmy Hollywood can attest to his thespian talents. But there's an ease now; a calm within the storm, if you will. It makes for a stronger presence.

Though I enjoyed the grisly hijinks, I was more disturbed by the comeuppance of Diaz's Laura. It wasn't that I didn't understand the women's roles -- Tripplehorn's Lois will defend her family come hell or high water and Laura has been socially conditioned to hold marriage above all -- but Laura's fate, while divine justice, is harsh compared to the fate that befalls the five men. It could be argued that she's a more active participant in her fate than the men are, or that it's not a punishment but rather it's the reality of the vows of marriage. However, there's something not quite right with the last image of a film, which has spent its length chronicling how men get away with murder, should be that of a woman imprisoned by being exactly what society made her.

Very Bad Things

Directed by: Peter Berg

Written by: Peter Berg

Starring: Christian Slater, Jon Favreau, Cameron Diaz, Jeremy Piven, Daniel Stern, Leland Orser, Jeanne Tripplehorn