Paixões Ardentes

Yes, Body Shots is pretentious all the way, well done, but it's also entertaining, sexy and surprisingly funny. Ron Livingston is hilarious as Trent. There's also some highly steamy sex scenes. Overall, the movie never bored me, it's a perfect example of a guilty pleasure. *** (out of four)

If you have ever wondered what sort of creative route the writers of Melrose Place might have taken if the show had been made for cable instead of Fox, Body Shots probably comes closest to what you might imagine. It has the same ridiculous scenarios and characters you can't stand, but with graphic sex scenes and explicit language.

Directed by Michael Cristofer (Hush) and written by David McKenna (American History X), Body Shots is the story of eight twenty-somethings still struggling with commitment issues, insecurities, and their libidos. One night on the town, the four men: Sean Patrick Flannery (Simply Irresistible), Jerry O' Connell (The 60's), Ron Livingston (Office Space) and Brad Rowe (Stonebrook), and the four women: Tara Reid (American Pie), Amanda Peet (Simply Irresistible), Emily Procter (Guinevere), and Sybil Temchen (The Passion of Ayn Rand) each pair off under different circumstances, and we are shown each of their "affairs" through a combination of flashbacks, testimonies, and "actual" footage. The film is divided up into three parts, Foreplay, Good Sex/Bad Sex and Afterplay. These subdivisions have no relevance to the plot of the movie, and seem to serve no purpose other than to make the film look trendy.

Dispersed throughout the film were mini-confessions a la the "Real World" where each character ruminates on sex, relationships and men and women. What makes these monologues so absurd is that none of these characters are likable and therefore, their two-cents are uninspiring and completely unamusing. The acting is this film was truly horrendous. It took the cake for worst acting ever. Come to think of it, it took the whole godamn cake store.

A rape scenario is introduced and most of the movie focuses on the two disputing testimonies of those involved. However the he said/she said conflicting stories are cliche and I felt as though I was watching a really bad after-school special. The movie is chock-full of cheesy camera effects such as fade-ins and fade-outs, painfully long close-ups, and unnecessary slow motion. Perhaps the director was hoping to make up for the movie's weak plot, bad dialogue, and horrendous acting with style, but no amount of gloss or tricks could have saved this film. Its two-dimensional characters, countless clichés, and obvious ending make Body Shots as unpleasant as your worst hangover.

Before falling off into oblivion. The first forty five minutes were good. It starts off in an interesting way and it's easy to become immersed in what is going on. Unfortunately the second half is poorly written. The driving force is killed off, and what follows only leads into the least anti-climatic ending ever seen. What's worse about the ending is that it fails to resolve any of the film's events. Which almost makes the entire movie a waste of a film.

The directing is great, way better than this film deserves. The acting was good. I liked Jerry O'Connell's performance. Tara Reid was surprisingly convincing in displaying her emotions. Amanda Peet could have done better. Ron Livingston was great, and is shown in a somewhat different light.

The film has a lot of wasted potential. I'm surprised that the last half of the script wasn't completely rewritten. It is as if the writer only planned out the first half before starting to write it. If it's a dollar rental, it may be worth it. Just to be safe, I'd only recommend it if it ends up on a subscription movie channel.

Since it's so far apart between seeing good acting, you really get surprised when it just kinda' sneaks up upon you and shows you what difference it makes.

Hollywood has spent years of making movies with bad dialog and acting whilst trying to cover it up with special FX, one-liners and retouched images of whatever actor/actress is the flava of the month. In `Body Shots' you get an incredibly knit-together group of Americas finest, all young actors that has yet to become too big for their own good. That is to say, they can still take on riskier projects that perhaps a bigger actor would be forced to turn down by their management because it would not `go with the audience'.

My personal thanks here to Sean Patrick Flanery and Amanda Peet, whom on earlier occasions showed me that they dared (or did not get any other offers, who knows :) commit to smaller and often much more rewarding ventures.

Tara Reid hasn't really impressed up till now with movies like American Pie and Urban Legends, but here she really gets a chance to act out. Usually, dramatic scenes are edited into smithereens, but all over `Body Shots' you get long, really intense sequences, with all of the cast-members showing their thespian caliber. I was also pleasantly surprised to be taken in by Chris O'Donnell's portrayal of the horny party-jock, since the last time I saw him was in the abysmal movie `Dungeons & Dragons' which kinda' put him on my black-list.

Ron Livingstone is just plain weird, and therefore, marvelous. (That Alka-Seltzer-bit is going to haunt me for a while :)

The editing is first class. In basically all movies, when you see a club-scene, you're not convinced at all. YOU know what it feels like to be in a steamy, crowded club, surrounded by (and being) people in various stages of intoxication. It's seldom portrayed with as much realism as it was here, much thanks to the clever editing. The layout of the story as a whole is also refreshing - not saying that messing up the timeline hasn't been done before - but the cut-scenes between the girls gang and the boys gang, the constant meta-perspective of the actors relaying their personal views of the meat market, and the flashbacks helps to make this movie what it is.

But what struck me most of all was the sex. I can't think about when I last saw a movie with such convincing sex-scenes. It was all the small things YOU do, but they never seem to be able to put into a movie. The sucking of fingers, the difference of intensity in kissing, the touching, the grabbing of genitalia. Now, I'm not saying that showing more always is the best way to portray sex. But when it's called for by the script and the context, then hell yes! And if you're going to attempt to make an honest movie about eight hormonally hyped twenty-something's, then most definitively so.

All in all, I was very impressed. The story has been done before, but not with such pathos. Movies like these make me hopeful of the future. Perhaps we're going away from only producing predictable storylines, uninspiring actors that deliver lines like they have a nail through their kneecap and dialog that you'd never hear outside of the screenwriters head.

Body Shots is a film that should have been promoted more and seen by more people. The film has sharp dialouge, smooth wit and Tara Reid nude. David McKenna has written another good script which is his follow up to Amercian History X and the cast of up and comers are all good. Ron Livingston as Trent makes the movie as Trent with his one-liners and further more we get to see Tara Reid naked.