|
|
There are certain films which have become famous on account of one sexually provocative scene. "From Here to Eternity" is an excellent film, which deserves to be remembered for many things, but it lives on in the public imagination as the film where Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr make love on the beach, even though that scene only occupies a short part of the film's running time. Similarly, "The Seven Year Itch" is remembered mostly for Marilyn's skirt billowing around her legs. And "Wild Things", of course, is best known for That Kiss between Denise Richards and Neve Campbell, although to be honest it has so few intrinsic merits that it deserves to be remembered for little else.
Sam Lombardo, a Florida high school guidance counsellor, is accused of rape by a female student, Kelly Van Ryan, the wild daughter of a wealthy family. Things start to look bad for Lombardo when a second student, Suzie Toller, comes forward to say that has also raped her. Lombardo is arrested and engages a lawyer named Kenneth Bowden to represent him. (Is it a coincidence that Lombardo has the same Christian name as, and his lawyer the same surname as, the hero of "Cape Fear", another thriller set in the American South and which also involved allegations of rape?)
When I started watching this film, I had no idea of the plot (except that it involved two girls kissing) and at this point I was still assuming that it would be either a traditional courtroom thriller or an "issue" movie about sexual abuse, but it turns out to be neither. There is an unexpected turn of events during the trial. Under cross-examination Suzie reveals that Lombardo did not rape her and that Kelly, who has a grudge against the counsellor, persuaded Suzie to join her in fabricating charges against him. Lombardo is triumphantly acquitted.
Now I have long learnt to be wary of crime films which involve the sudden and unexpected acquittal of the defendant about halfway though, as this is generally a sign that a major plot twist is in the offing, the twist normally being that the supposedly innocent man is in reality as guilty as hell, if not of the crime of which he was accused then of some other felony. (There was a twist of this nature in "Just Cause", another nineties thriller set in southern Florida). And so it proves here. Following his acquittal Lombardo brings a lawsuit seeking compensation and is awarded $8.5 million. The twist proves to be that he, Suzie and Kelly planned the entire incident in order to split the compensation money between them.
That, however, is not the end of the story. Ray Duquette, the police officer who investigated the original rape allegations, becomes suspicious of Lombardo, and keeps him under observation. Moreover, this is not the end of the twists either. Most "twist thrillers" only have one main plot twist. Some, like "Reindeer Games", have two. "Wild Things" has so many that I lost count. The whole of the second half of the movie amounted to little more than one twist after another. I haven't got space (or the inclination) to list them all here, although they all involve variants on the two most popular twists, namely:-
1. That a character believed to be dead is in fact alive, and
2. That a character believed to be a hero is in fact a villain.
Denise Richards will never be my favourite actress; her performance in "The World is Not Enough" means that she must go down as one of the worst Bond girls of all times. Nevertheless, her looks and her combination of innocence and sensuality make her just right for the role of the wanton rich girl Kelly (even if, at 27, she was about a decade older than the character she was supposed to be playing). Neve Campbell was also convincing as the sluttish white-trash Suzie, but few of the other actors make much impression; the likes of Kevin Bacon, Theresa Russell and Robert Wagner are all capable of much better work than this. The real problem, however, is not with the acting but with the plot. The result of all the twists is a plot which has been twisted out of all recognition. The story, at least on a first viewing, is virtually incomprehensible, even with the assistance of a series of flashbacks intercut with the closing credits. Eventually the viewer may realise what is supposed to have happened, but this does not help much, as it means that the film simply becomes incredible rather than incomprehensible. One of the characters- I won't say which- has devised a scheme to dispose of all the others, a scheme of such baroque complexity that it bears no relation to the way in which any real human being, even the most fiendish criminal, would behave in real life. Films like this one serve little purpose other than to show off the supposed cleverness of the director and scriptwriters. Comparisons to the work of Alfred Hitchcock, a noted student of psychology, and to the best films noirs, which have a much more realistic view of human nature, seem to me to be very wide of the mark.
"Wild Things"- I don't think I love you.
3/10 (2/10 for the story, with a bonus point for That Kiss).
score 3/10
JamesHitchcock 29 May 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2073379/ |
|
29-11-2019 20:56:28
