Ever see a movie and you suddenly realize your IQ is dropping? That's this movie. I seriously cannot believe this movie got made, or that anyone in charge of the budget signed off on it. It's horribly dull, just scene after scene of people dancing and partying. These four "ladies" go on "spraang braaaake" and bad stuff happens. I kept waiting for the point, but really, the movie has nothing to say other than "look at these ladies in their bikinis." I guess the "moral" is that you shouldn't do bad things or bad things might happen to you? Maybe?
My least favorite part was the constant repetition of lines. I feel like the "writers" couldn't come up with good dialogue, so when they found something they liked, they repeated it. At one point, the girls get arrested, and they keep saying "it wasn't supposed to be like this" over and over. I'm not kidding, I think they said it six or seven times. The film is visually stunning, if I'm being positive. They spent a LOT of money on neon lights and fake guns...and swimsuits. SO MANY swimsuits, and so many closeups of women in swimsuits. I kinda feel like the director graduated from "Girls Gone Wild" to artsy films, but this need more plot, character arcs, and less of James Franco's teeth. If you want to hear people say "spraang braaaake forevvvvvahhh" many MANY times, go for it.
I wonder if this would be received differently nowadays, considering we’ve become far more accustomed to films where the protagonist is either annoying and/or irredeemable from the start. This is essentially made for people who get some perverse fun out of watching reality tv, it’s not for people who genuinely watch that shit (or even watch it as a guilty pleasure). This thing is like an intentional hate watch, and if you’re open to that you should be able to have fun with it. I liked the satire early in the film, as well as the dark comedy that appears later on. It looks a lot better than most reality tv of course, this has some great lighting and cinematography. It’s suitably pornographic and a lot of the music is complete dogshit, which fits with the vision of the filmmaker. The score is pretty nice, it feels like Cliff Martinez was still in Drive mode when he composed it. That being said, I don’t think the writing is particularly sharp. Much like Triangle of Sadness or Don’t Look Up, what it’s doing is very obvious and it never digs any deeper to say something truly bold. The bit becomes more and more played out as the film goes along. Moreover, there’s something a bit snooty about an arthouse filmmaker that makes a film like this about the uncultured. Going back to my earlier point, there’s only so much you can do with boring, vapid people, so this won’t challenge anyone with two working brain cells. Idk, it’s all a bit too obvious and low for it to be truly great, but I still had fun with it.
5.5/10
Review by DeletedBlockedParentSpoilers2013-10-02T12:58:53Z
There is only one redeeming factor about this movie, the fact that Trakt give rating of 1 heart the name 'Weak Sauce :(' as that describes this movie perfectly.
People may say that this is a more 'arty' film, let's be frank, it's not well enough executed to be one, I've seen better arty films elsewhere.
Not only that, but I just can't get over the plot holes, which includes some typical Hollywood style puffery, for instance, the girls hold up a cafe (I think) at gunpoint, steal money from the till without wearing gloves (so you'd think there are fingerprints at least), the girls later get arrested during Spring Break (so I'd imagine fingerprinted), so I'm either over-estimating police intelligence or information sharing, or that was a pretty big plot hole.
In addition, when they are outside the diner/superette(?) and they re-enact the hold up, how that scene would go completely unnoticed, boggles my mind, it just doesn't make sense to me.
Apart from what I feel like plot holes, the proportion of runtime spent on mindless dribble/fast cuts/etc (which is really the director trying to be artsy) bored me out of my mind like you'd never believe.
In summary, I want my hour and a half back!