Here is a test screening review of "WILD THINGS". Once again, this was a test screening, some elements could be unfinished, and ultimately it is the opinion of a single person. Who knows, you could love the film. Thetan did not. There are spoilers in the review.
Greetings ladies and gentleman, and John McNaughton if you are reading, it is I, the Thetan, fresh from the test screening of the new Neve Campbell film, "Wild Things". First off, let me put to rest the question which most of you male types will be dying to know: NEVE IS NOT NAKED IN THIS FILM. There, whew, feels good to get that out in the open, on with the review.
"Wild Things" is the new John McNaughton thriller. You may know Mr. McNaughton as he directed the brilliant, "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer"; and the not-so-brilliant, "Mad Dog and Glory".
The cast is interesting. Aside from Neve, there is Matt Dillon, Kevin Bacon, Theresa Russell, Robert Wagner (yes, Mr. Hart, I couldn't believe it either), and Bill Murray.
The story starts out in the auditorium of a high school where teacher, Matt Dillon is giving a lecture on "Sex Crimes" which, in case you in the audience miss its relevancy to the plot, is spelled it out in big, white letters on a blackboard.
No sooner can you say, "dramatic irony" when, the next day, Dillon finds his will tempted when a buxom blonde seventeen year-old is inside his house, in a dripping wet, white, see-through tee-shirt.
The next thing you know, this temptress has her millionaire mother (whom coincidentally had been sleeping with Dillon, oh just wait, it gets worse...) phone the principal's office, telling Dillon to get a lawyer because she is going to the police. Yes a SEX CRIME was committed.
Dillon soon finds himself out of a job and snubbed by all of his former friends in the affluent Miami community in which he lives. We don't know what really happened in his house because we were never shown the alleged incident.
Suddenly, mad-at-the-world loner, Neve Campbell spills her guts to investigator, Kevin Bacon. She was also raped by Dillon.
Dillon is forced to hunt for a lawyer in Little Havana because he has no money. Enter Bill Murray, a wacky ambulance chaser who is so crooked he wears a phony neck brace in an insurance scam he has concocted. Murray shows what an incredibly talented actor he is by giving a performance which had me laughing in the face of misery. Unfortunately his appearance in this film is akin to a rose growing in the middle of a septic tank.
Murray cross-examines Neve on the stand and breaks her testimony. The prosecution's case crumbles. Dillon is dismissed and exonerated.
Murray convinces Dillon to sue Russell for several of her millions for defamation of character. She quickly settles out of court for a mere eight million dollars!(Wow, some lawyer she has huh?)
Dillon walks away a very rich man. That's the entire film, right? Of course not, we are only into about fifty minutes of screen time.
Enter Kevin Bacon, the cop who investigated Dillon, who now suspects a "switcher-oo" might have taken place. He speculates that Dillon, the buxom blonde, and Neve were all conspiring together to scam Theresa Russell out of that eight million. Of course he is correct, the three have been in on it from the start.
This leads us to a very strange threesome in a hotel room. Dillon, the unknown blonde actress, and Neve all start getting it on on the queen-sized bed. Of course the blonde is nearly totally naked while Neve makes out with her WEARING A TANK TOP. DO NOT BE MISLED BY THE 'R' RATING AS WAS I.
Having no hard evidence, Bacon starts trying to set each of the three partners against each other. He gets Neve to become wildly suspicious that other two are going to cut her out of the split, so much so that Dillon soon murders her.
Bacon pursues the blonde to her mother's home. Where he ends up having to shoot her (off-screen) in self-defense.
This leaves us with Bacon, who has now been kicked off of the force because of the shooting incident, and Dillon. Now off on his own with the entire eight million, Matt retreats to a luxurious Miami bungalow. He hears the shower running. He steps inside to investigate.
Words fail me for what we see next. Through the steam, we see a naked body from behind. Yes folks, that's right, its Bacon doing his token, Hollywood, "bare-ass" shot. But does it end there? No, I'm sorry to say, not when you are Kevin Bacon, executive producer of "Wild Things". Kevin has seen "Boogie Nights" he knows how to create a "buzz" about his film, right? He turns toward camera a'la Dirk Diggler revealing, to a shocked audience, his manhood. Unlike Dirk, this shot was all Kevin. The horror, the horror...
It turns out that Bacon and Dillon had hatched this convoluted murder plot from the beginning. They are going to split the take fifty/fifty. Dillon somehow convinces Bacon to unwind for a while on his forty foot sailboat instead of doing the logical thing and splitting the money right away and leaving each other. Dillon, at the steering wheel, makes a hard-right throwing Bacon over the side, into the middle of the Atlantic.
He sits back in his captain's chair and in a scene we've never seen before in the history of motion pictures, ("Dead Calm" notwithstanding) Bacon climbs back into the boat. He had luckily grabbed a loose rope. Bacon menacingly approaches Dillon ready to kill him when he finds himself bleeding from gunshots.
None other than a blonde-haired Neve Campbell has come up from below deck and shot Bacon. You see, she and Dillon had faked her death and THEY were the ones in on it from the beginning. She and Dillon drink a toast to their good fortune. This, of course, turns out to be a double cross as well. Dillon collapses, his drink was poisoned. We see Neve sailing solo off into the sunset.
Over the credits are scenes which we were not privy to originally, like the alleged rape. Unfortunately for Movie View, the mass exodus from this stinker had already begun.
The acting is bottom-of-the-barrel, which is absolutely shocking for a filmmaker the caliber of John McNaughton. I was not sure of the acting range of Neve Campbell having only previously seen her in "Scream". Now I realize why she is not taking roles that require a stretch.
The script is ridiculous. Every half an hour or so, a new twist is thrown in "Wild Things" to thoroughly confound you. These twists, as in "The Game", seriously invalidate the credibility of earlier actions by certain characters.
But the worst aspect of "Wild Things" is the way the initial topic of rape is trivialized. The film begins as a TV movie level handling of a disturbing issue and turns around and uses it as a plot device. I find it difficult to believe McNaughton thought he could get away with brushing aside such a controversial topic as rape. Shame on you John, shame on you.
I walked out of the screening disheartened. I was upset at life and the world for making me endure such pain and horror. But I knew I could get a small amount of revenge by a quick visit to Harry's World.
I will go out on a limb and say that "Wild Things" will be the worst film of 1998 (then again "An Alan Smithee Film" will be coming out in March...). Sorry for the bad omen Harry... make things go right...
The Thetan
