An Incredibly, INCREDIBLY Bad Movie
Watching most 80's movies in the harsh light of present day, three words come to mind: STARVED FOR ENTERTAINMENT. In the pre-Netflix, pre-VOD days of wobbly VHS, we surely must have been. How else to explain some of us getting dressed on a Saturday night to drive our Corollas to a mall theater for the privilege of parting with real money for a piece of shit like Bad Influence?
I'm reminded of a joke:
Guy walks into a bar.
"Howdy!" says the bartender, wiplng a glass.
"You know what's good here?"
Guy waits, anticipating a great tip,.
The bartender's smile fades. "Nuthin," he says, still wiping.
That's what's good here, too: nothing. Not the acting, which manages to even debase the fine James Spader to the curriculum of the Rob Lowe College of thriller clichés. Not the script, which I was ahead of every step of the way. Yes, I noticed who took the wallet, and why. Yes, I know why you set him up with that girl, and how you'll use her. The engagement broken by videotape (more of a 90's touch, really), the Risky Business-like stripping bare of his dream Manhattan yuppie loft. Not one surprise here. No fun, either. Just the tedium of watching the director thread his shoelace into the next hole.
Ten minutes in, I could have shut it off and finished out the script myself. We all know where it's going, even if we don't agree with certain leaps, like a drugged urge to go right along with a gunpoint robbery and later a murder, which actually makes no sense at all. Any more than emptying someone's entire house as revenge makes any sense, but we've now seen it in two major 80's flicks so it became, like, a thing.
Not much for me to like exept a shot at refunds, for a thriller with no thrills, bad acting, weak dialogue, unbelievable situations, and a terrible soundtrack. Oh -- and those awful hairstyles. Is there a real story there, underneath all that tired Hollywood hackwork, concerning a timid but capable man brought out of his shell by a charming liar and thief? Maybe ... if handled by real talent.
Bad Script, Bad Acting, Bad Hairstyles …
Bad Movie.