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91Peter 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.
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70Cameron 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]
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63The 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.
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63In 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.
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60In a world filled with crude movie sitcoms, Berg's bitter, worst-possible-case scenario really does stand alone.
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60The 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.
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50Very Bad Things only getes worse. [25 November 1998, p. 44]
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50The result is a film that's far superior to Neil LaBute's "Your Friends and Neighbors'' and more entertaining than Todd Solondz's "Happiness.''
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50Basically 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.
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50When it is good, the film by "Chicago Hope" actor Peter Berg is very, very good, but when it is bad it is horrid.
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50The 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]
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40Humorous 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.
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30It 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.
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30As 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.
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25This 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.
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25Isn'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.
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25No comedy this vile should be brazenly foolish enough to give itself this title. [25 November 1998, p. 3D]
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20It's a worthless bit of low-grade satire that's as sophisticated and entertaining as a pile of twigs.
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20Very 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.
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It poses as an unblinkered look at the hangups and hypocrisies of the bourgeoisie. In reality it's an empty, narcissistic tantrum.
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20Hollow, simple-minded and about as profound an experience as stepping in a pile of road kill.
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12A 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.
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11There is a line between gallows humor and tastelessness, but Very Bad Things apparently doesn't have a clue where that might be.
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10Pitched 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.
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Positive: 5 out of 10
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Mixed: 1 out of 10
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Negative: 4 out of 10
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