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Stephen Dorff plays a slacker, who becomes a cult hero after he is taken hostage by a terrorist group for a month. The terrorists take videos of the hostages, particularly Dorff who is full of sarcasm and inane "wit". He falls in love with another hostage (Reese Witherspoon), while attempting to keep his sanity. When he dispatches the terrorists, he finds himself thrust into the spotlight. For what possible reason I cannot comprehend, owing that his "philosophy" sounds like so much drivel, and it makes me wonder why a lot of people would worship morons like this. The film attempts to get across its message: Media manipulation and the public feeding frenzies on survivors of tragedy. Two problems with this: (1) It has been done before with a much better grasp on how to get the message across - sometimes subtly (like in the French production "Man Bites Dog") - sometimes not so subtly ("Natural Born Killers"), but always with better acting, filmaking techniques, dialogue, storyline, editing and directing than with this production. (2) The film gets its message across loud and clear in the first "two" minutes, then tortures it to death for the next 90 minutes, brutally and without mercy. Why anybody would try to sell this depressing, muddled mess as "comedy" is beyond me. Is there anything good in this? Witherspoon makes a much worthier effort for a decent performance than the incredibly lame Dorff.

But she is on for such a minimal amount of time in the picture, that any hope for her saving this picture is lost immediately after her one minute scenes are over.

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originally posted: 12/18/99 06:46:01
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