Wild Things: You Make My Heart Sing

Reviewed by Vickie Reichardt, Cinema Geek

Vick's Rating:

= There's two hours of my life I'll never see again. Is it too late to ask for my money back?
= They could have done SO much better. Wait for the video.
= Not bad at all. Some solid work.
= Wow! I'm very impressed. I might go see this one again.
= For the love of all that is good and kind in the world, what an amazing movie!!!

Directed by John McNaughton

Cast: Kelly Van Ryan.....Denise Richards
Suzie Toller.....Neve Campbell
Sam Lombardo.....Matt Dillon
Ray Duquette.....Kevin Bacon
Gloria Perez.....Daphne Rubin-Vega
Ken Bowden.....Bill Murray

Wow. Just when you thought it was safe to officially declare the spring movie season "completely uneventful," along comes "Wild Things" to knock you on your naysaying ass. Sure, it's no "Citizen Kane," but it's incredibly entertaining and a whole boatload of fun if you let yourself enjoy it.

Trying to explain the plot would be like trying to wrap my mind around how and why Kim Basinger managed to win an Academy Award (!), but the general gist of things is this: vastly dissimilar high schoolers Kelly Van Ryan (Denise Richards)--the oversexed rich girl, and Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell)--the dope-smoking, trailerpark dweller, accuse handsome young guidance counselor Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon) of rape. With a community in an uproar, Lombardo finds himself under investigation by steely and none-too-pleasant cop Ray Duquette (Kevin Bacon) and his partner, Gloria Perez (Daphne Rubin-Vega), and decides to enlist the aid of shady, low-rent lawyer Ken Bowden (Bill Murray). As the case, and the ramifications of the subsequent courtroom ruling, unfold, the plots becomes ever more deliciously twisted and complex. Relationships between various individuals come to light; double-crossing is elevated to an art form; betrayal awaits at every turn; and Theresa Russell shows up as a lascivious, bikini-clad mother with Robert Wagner as her ruthless attorney!

Trying to stay one step ahead of the story becomes futile as the plotlines and characters weave back and forth over the line of decency and morality. Sometimes they're the good guys, sometimes they're the bad guys...and trying to figure out who's who and, more importantly, who's really behind the whole mystifying jamboree is a dizzying undertaking. At one point, I was ready to find out that I was actually involved somehow. And don't even get me started on the sex. The characters' bedhopping makes the shenanigans on "Melrose Place" look like exercises in self-restraint.

Credit has to be given to the daring young cast. Neve Campbell and Denise Richards both pull out all the stops with their roles, but Richards is by far the one with more at stake. Sauntering around in wet clothing (a wet t-shirt, a wet bathing suit, etc.), doffing all clothing for her three-way love scene with Campbell and Dillon, and spouting some of the film's most outrageous lines, she still manages to outshine more-seasoned costar Campbell, whose years on television's "Party of Five" seem to have left her somewhat stuck in Julia-mode. As for the guys, Matt Dillon--Hello? Who ever had a guidance counsellor that looked like Matt Dillon?--is nicely creepy, and Kevin Bacon is appropriately menacing, but the women are clearly the stars here.

Now, despite my glowing review, your mind may still be clouded by whispers you might have heard that the movie isn't really all that good--that the plot is average at best, that the performances look like something out of a Roger Corman movie, and that the real reason people are going to see this movie is for the sex. While that may hold true for some, in order to fully enjoy this film as it was meant to be enjoyed, there is one thing that you, as a conscientious filmgoer, must take into account while watching:

THIS MOVIE IS NOT TAKING ITSELF SERIOUSLY. The debate between whether or not "Wild Things" is meant to be a Serious Thriller or a Campy Send-Up has been an ongoing one. Theatergoers and movie critics alike seem to be divided into two camps; those who got it, and those who didn't. Invariably, the ones who "got it" have nothing but raves for the movie, and the ones who didn't are bashing it as an exploitive girlie show with a convoluted plot. Well, duh! That's what it's supposed to be. There was nothing--for me anyway--to suggest that the cast and crew of the film thought they were making anything other than a campy, over-the-top, guilty pleasure of a movie. And, in the words of housemistress Martha Stewart, that's a good thing. By taking the liberty of taking liberties with everything from groan-inducing dialogue to catfights complete with hair-pulling and squealing, the filmmakers have crafted a wickedly entertaining movie that has to be accepted and appreciated for what it is: fluff. But damn fun fluff. Whereas "Hush" was so dreadfully awful that it was funny, "Wild Things" is a movie so purposely bad (in the naughty way) that it's a wild, wild ride.

And, after watching it, I'll take an E-ticket jaunt with Neve and Denise and Matt and Kevin any day.

Vick's Video Picks

For another stellar lesson in the art of the double-cross, try "Bound." Written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski, the film stars Jennifer Tilly ("Bullets Over Broadway") and Gina Gershon ("Showgirls") as lovers who plot to steal two million dollars from Tilly's mobster boyfriend (Joe Pantoliano). Beautifully shot and carefully executed, the film might lose viewers somewhere in the first thirty or forty minutes, but trust me: KEEP WATCHING! For some reason, the pacing and tone of the film's opening third is out of sync with the tightly woven, intricately designed latter thirds where, as in "Wild Things," trying to guess the outcome of the film becomes an activity all its own. Tilly and Gershon are superb as the femme mob moll and the butchy ex-con, respectively, and Pantoliano is delightful as the somewhat frazzled and increasingly tense mobster. The real treat, though, is the amount of drama, angst, tension, chemistry and full-out movie fun the filmmakers were able to generate by using little more than two locations and three actors.

Vickie, a self-confessed movie addict, has spent the last few years working at an entertainment magazine in Canada. When she's not toiling away at her computer in the office, she's toiling away at her computer at home-- hacking away at unfinished screenplays and planning her acceptance speech for the Academy Awards.