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Very Bad Things
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Wikipedia article
'Very Bad Things' is a 1998 American black comedy film written and directed by Peter Berg in his feature film directorial debut and starring Cameron Diaz, Jon Favreau, Daniel Stern, Jeremy Piven, Christian Slater, Leland Orser, Kobe Tai and Jeanne Tripplehorn.
Plot
Kyle Fisher organizes a bachelor party in a Las Vegas hotel with his friends: Charles Moore, Robert Boyd, and brothers Adam and Michael Berkow, but things quickly go horribly wrong when Tina, a stripper/prostitute, is accidentally killed by Michael in the bathroom and shortly thereafter, a security guard comes to investigate the ruckus and discovers Tina's corpse, at which point Robert desperately stabs the security guard to death and then convinces the group to dismember the bodies, bury them in the desert, and never speak of it again.
At the rehearsal dinner, Adam cracks under the pressure from guilt, leading to a confrontation with Michael outside, with Adam threatening to turn him over to the police. Michael is convinced to leave, however while leaving, he turns to ram Adam's beloved minivan. Adam runs in front of his van and is crushed in the collision. In the hospital, Adam whispers something to his wife Lois before dying, as Robert looks on through a glass window.
Lois demands answers about what happened in Las Vegas when she finds a written confession by Adam. Kyle makes up a story about Adam sleeping with a prostitute. Robert, suspecting she does not believe them, kills Lois, later framing Michael by luring him to Lois' house, where he kills him. He concocts a story about a Michael/Lois/Adam love triangle to answer any interrogation by police. After these events and being named beneficiary of Adam and Lois' estate, Kyle breaks down and confesses the story to his fiance Laura, who demands that her dream wedding proceed as planned.
On the wedding day, Robert confronts Kyle, demanding the money from Adam's life insurance policy. He refuses and a fight ensues which ends with Laura bludgeoning Robert. During the ceremony, Kyle and Charles realize that Robert has the wedding rings. Charles goes to retrieve them, opening a door that knocks Robert down a stairwell where he dies. Laura demands Kyle bury his body in the desert and then ensure no loose ends remain by killing Charles. Ultimately, he cannot go through with it and as he drives home, he crashes into an oncoming car.
After the collision, Kyle's legs are amputated below the knee and Charles is a quadriplegic confined to a motorized wheelchair, leaving Laura to care for both of them, in addition to raising Adam and Lois' two sons. As Laura watches Kyle with the two boys, it hits her that her life and dreams are completely and utterly ruined and has a nervous breakdown as she runs out of the house and collapses screaming in the street.
Cast
* Christian Slater as Robert Boyd
* Cameron Diaz as Laura Garrety-Fisher
* Jon Favreau as Kyle Fisher
* Daniel Stern as Adam Berkow
* Jeremy Piven as Michael Berkow
* Leland Orser as Charles Moore
* Jeanne Tripplehorn as Lois Berkow
* Joey Zimmerman as Adam Berkow Jr.
* Kobe Tai as Tina
Production
'Very Bad Things' was noted for having a very similar plot setup to 'Stag', a film which originally aired on HBO in June 1997. Director Peter Berg told 'The A.V. Club' in 1998, "See, the first time I'd ever heard about 'Stag' was after I had finished writing the screenplay for 'Very Bad Things'. When we were at the point of getting the film financed, we had a lawyer look over the script and the film to make sure there weren't too many similarities. I mean, there were things we had to change; for example, one of the characters in the movie was a baker, and there was also a baker in our script, so we had to change some very minor things. But as far as I understand it, the two films take very different approaches to the material. I will say this: I think it would be interesting to get, like, three different directorssay, Soderbergh, Spielberg, and Coppolaand have them all tell the exact same story in a different way."
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 41% based on reviews from 58 critics, with the consensus, "Mean-spirited and empty". On Metacritic it has a score of 31% based on reviews from 24 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "D+" on scale of A to F.
Roger Ebert wrote that 'Very Bad Things' is "not a bad movie, just a reprehensible one". Some critics appreciated the cold-blooded approach. Maitland McDonagh of 'TV Guide' wrote, "In a world filled with crude movie sitcoms, Berg's bitter, worst-possible-case scenario really does stand alone".
References
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