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Very Bad Things
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment


6.0

based on 24 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 10 votes
Read user comments
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FILM:

Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R for strong, grisly violence, sexuality, drug use and language

Starring Jon Favreau, Leland Orser, Cameron Diaz, Christian Slater, Rob Brownstein, Jeremy Piven, Daniel Stern, and Jeanne Tripplehorn

The grim misadventures of a group of friends in Las Vegas for a bachelor party.

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Peter Berg
DIRECTED BY:	Peter Berg
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 27, 2003 Video: October 5, 1999 Theatrical: November 25, 1998
RUNNING TIME:	100 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Peter Berg's scandalous sick-joke thriller is packed with rude and clever twists, and it delves, with surprising force, into the hypocritical postures of corporate-era male bonding. The cast is terrific, especially Christian Slater.

Time Richard Schickel

Cameron Diaz is sublimely screwy as the single-minded bride determined not to let anything--including the deadly mishaps that keep shrinking the wedding party--spoil her nuptials. [30 November 1998, p. 111]

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

In an era when the words "President" and "penis" can occupy the same sentence and prompt nothing but yawns, this picture actually manages to surprise, to startle, yes, to administer a series of small but genuine shocks.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The tone, which veers uncertainly between dark comedy and suspense, is uneven, and the characters are not vivid enough to stabilize the load of a shifting, runaway plot.

Empire Kim Newman

The film has a real sense of a situation slipping out of control, with marvellous displays of hysteria matched by movie trickery that spreads the edginess to the audience.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

In a world filled with crude movie sitcoms, Berg's bitter, worst-possible-case scenario really does stand alone.

Variety Derek Elley

Basically a very conventional movie gussied up with a few jaw-dropping moments. Unlike genuinely amoral pics such as "Heathers" or "Shallow Grave," it never seems really comfortable with its characters' actions.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

When it is good, the film by "Chicago Hope" actor Peter Berg is very, very good, but when it is bad it is horrid.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The writer of Very Bad Things has done poorly by the director. This is particularly painful because they are the same person, Peter Berg. Director Berg shows lively talent, focused and controlled. Writer Berg shows some talent, too, but he is wobbly in design and purpose. [14 December 1998, p.26]

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The result is a film that's far superior to Neil LaBute's "Your Friends and Neighbors'' and more entertaining than Todd Solondz's "Happiness.''

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Very Bad Things only getes worse. [25 November 1998, p. 44]

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Humorous slashings and car accidents constitute similar high points in a film that is glaringly short on ''Scream''-style self-mockery to match its dopey mayhem.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It never makes you laugh that hard. Not even close. And so the thing becomes a bloody assault on the senses that commingles atrocity with tedium.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

As the characters behave with symbolic excess in situations designed to provoke their bigotry and self-interest, superficial black comedy periodically gives way to painful drama.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Isn't a bad movie, just a reprehensible one. It presents as comedy things that are not amusing. If you think this movie is funny, that tells me things about you I don't want to know.

USA Today Mike Clark

No comedy this vile should be brazenly foolish enough to give itself this title. [25 November 1998, p. 3D]

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

This is Berg's debut outing as a director, but other first-timers, namely Joel Coen (Blood Simple) and Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave), had it all over him for blending horror and hilarity.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Very Bad Things is a guy film, and, as such, it's a dog. The gross-out humor lacks edge, the guilt never kicks in, and the outrages are predictable. It's one flat brewski.

Dallas Observer Michael Sragow

It poses as an unblinkered look at the hangups and hypocrisies of the bourgeoisie. In reality it's an empty, narcissistic tantrum.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Hollow, simple-minded and about as profound an experience as stepping in a pile of road kill.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

It's a worthless bit of low-grade satire that's as sophisticated and entertaining as a pile of twigs.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

A dark comedy about a bachelor party gone awry, it is excessively violent, ghoulish, and gory. Very Bad Things is lack-of-taste taken to the extreme.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

There is a line between gallows humor and tastelessness, but Very Bad Things apparently doesn't have a clue where that might be.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

Pitched as a black comedy, the film thus far seems to have divided audiences between those who think it unaccountably hilarious and those who see it as the latest manifestation of what might be called the new nihilism.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Gnarles gave it a9:
It's a near-classic - as long as you have the guts to watch it on its own terms and resist the urge to twist and contort it into something else. The lesser critics who beat this up for its "nihilism" and "grossness" appear to be painfully unaware that their line of inflated, pompous thinking is the real thing being ripped to pieces in "Very Bad Things". Or maybe they DO realize it, and their dumb reviews are their protection. At any rate, it took major guts to craft a movie like this and I admire Berg for having them. Doesn't always work, but there are two amazing scenes for every bad one. Slater is sensational, a pitch-perfect parody of male self-help postivite thinking gone terribly wrong. Too bad it's so far been his last good performance. See Very Bad Things. Don't judge. Just watch.

Vee gave it an 8:
This movie is simply - funny. gives you something to laugh at in almost every scene. VERY surprised to see it on the "all-time low scores list".

[Anonymous] gave it an 8:
Very funny.

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Very Bad Things PolyGram Filmed Entertainment

Very Bad Things
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment