The directorial debut of Chicago Hope regular Peter Berg, who's also appeared in such films as The Last Seduction and A Midnight Clear, Very Bad Things is not so much shocking or subversive as it is simply unpleasant--a gratuitously nasty assault on societal conventions unleavened by wit, compassion, or understanding. The story involves a group of buddies (Jon Favreau of Swingers, Ellen's Jeremy Piven, Christian Slater in Heathers-mode, and Daniel Stern) who head for Las Vegas for a bachelor party and wind up accidentally killing a hooker and then deliberately murdering a security guard. Predictably, their efforts to cover up their misdeeds soon begin to unravel; unfortunately, Berg seems to think that moral squalor per se is either a laff riot or incredibly incisive or (I suspect) both. The lack of insight might have been forgivable had the film at least been hideously funny, but the best it has to offer in the way of humor is an out-of-focus Slater pointedly fondling the handle of a bread knife while Favreau nervously improvises a lie. Not recommended. (M. D'Angelo)
Very Bad Things
(PolyGram, 100 min., R, avail. May 18, <b>DVD</b>) Vol. 14, Issue 3
Very Bad Things
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
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