There are bad films that are simply bad. There are bad films that defy description. And there are bad films where the badness transcends into quality of its own. Wild Things, 1998 noir thriller directed by John Mc Naughton, is one of such films.
The plot is set in Blue Bay, picturesque city in South Florida which looks like paradise on Earth. All of its inhabitants seem to be rich, beautiful or both. Judging by the way female students look at him, high school councillor Sam Lombardo (played by Matt Dillon) belongs among the beautiful people. One day, Kelly Van Ryan (played by Denise Richards), one of the students, volunteers to help Lombardo wash his car. During that encounter something happens and Kelly leaves Lombardo's house with her clothes torn and rushes to tell police detectives Ray Duquette (played by Kevin Bacon) and Perez (played by Daphne Rubin-Vega) about alleged rape. Detectives are at first sceptical, but when trailer trash pot-smoking student Suzie Marie Toller (played by Neve Campbell) comes forward with similar story, they haven't got other choice than to arrest Lombardo. Councillor is in really big trouble because Kelly's mother Sandra (played by Theresa Russell) happens to be not only his mistress but also the richest and most influential woman in town. After she and her lawyer Tom Baxter (played by Robert Wagner) discourage all decent Blue Bay lawyers from representing him, Lombardo sees only hope in the form of cheap and sleazy attorney Ken Bowden (played by Bill Murray).
John McNaughton, who until that point had been regarded as serious film maker, shocked many by delivering Wild Things. Stephen Peters' script about bunch of deeply amoral, oversexed, greedy and scruples people endlessly cheating each other was more suitable for "straight-to-video" than for reasonably high budget Hollywood production (and Wild Things 2 shows what was the film supposed to look like under normal circumstances). On the other hand, McNaughton and the studio perhaps recognised that the elements of exploitation cinema - complex intrigues, explicit violence, perverse sex, dark secrets, graphic nudity and scantily clad nubile girls with unorthodox sexual preferences - can give this film a new quality, if pushed hard enough. As a result, Wild Things functions as a very good comedy, albeit with most of the humour looking unintentional. This is especially the case with the plot twists and complexity of intrigues - they are so ridiculously complicated, that they can't be explained throughout the course of film. McNaughton cleverly solves this problem by adding explanatory scenes in the end credits.
The acting in Wild Things is more than fine for this sort of film. Denise Richards, apart from acting, explicitly shows some other, more obvious qualities. Sadly, Neve Campbell, who joined Richards in couple of memorable scenes, doesn't follow her example and the result not only disappoints male segments of the audience but also destroys suspension of disbelief at the crucial moments. On the other hand, blandness of Matt Dillon and all-too-familiar menacing look of Kevin Bacon is well-matched with over-the-top performance by Robert Wagner. The show is, however, stolen by Bill Murray in short, but incredibly effective role. All in all, Wild Things is very entertaining film, one of those for which the phrase "guilty pleasure" was invented.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on May 12th 2004)
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