The Smokers

I wish I had checked the IMDB reviews for this movie before renting it.

Don't be fooled by the reasonably interesting summary on the back of the box, this is one of the worst films I have ever sat through. The acting is laughable, with lines being delivered in a horribly stilted, mechanical style by all but one actor (excepting Thora Birch, who only has about ten minutes of screen time). Of course, you can't fault the actors for having to deliver lines that are horribly cliched or needlessly dramatic. Finally, it appears to have been edited by fairly intelligent chimps, with massive skips in the story leaving you trying desperately to figure out what's going on. The last ten minutes are among the worst ever commited to celluloid in movie that is trying to take itself seriously.

I rented this in hopes of seeing, at the least, a film with some memorable lines or fun moments, and hoped that possibly I was stumbling across an underrated, obscure gem. I didn't even get any memorable lines or fun moments. It seems that what the film is trying to do is show a feminist view of sex, but the viewpoint doesn't go very deep or really seem that intriguing. It hardly even makes sense. The characters don't do much to support this attempt at deepness, and the acting is lousy all around. One of the main girls is trying her best to be an Angelina Jolie type, but she has zero charisma or screen presence. I think the best acting in the film was from a minor female character in a bar that one of the male characters was trying to pick up, and she had about three lines. Seriously, the acting is that noticeably bad. Thora Birch must be trying to earn indie cred by appearing in this right around the time her career was taking off, and she does have one of the better moments towards the beginning involving playing a Russian roulette-type game with an almost completely loaded gun, but the fact that the gun is loaded is the only fascinating part about this scene because her acting isn't particularly stellar. Dominique Swain doesn't even shine at all, and she has definitely saved some films I've seen in the past. The pot smoking seemed like a gimmick tacked onto the film. It's a shame. This movie looks good on paper, but suffers from weakness factoring in from all aspects that go into the making of it.

I think this movie is laden with heavyhanded irony; while a lot of it is

inexplicable, poorly edited and just plain strange, the main thing I

took away from it was that while these girls thought they were starting

a "revolution", they were only hurting themselves.

Case in point; the girls try to get back at Guy #1 by trying to force

sex on him at gunpoint. It fails, but they think it was a success. The

rest of the males in town think it's hot, and want it to happen to them.

A couple of more feeble attempts are made at controlling males at

gunpoint, but also fail miserably. Instead of realizing that they are

getting into these situations themselves, and allowing themselves to be

used by guys, they get even angrier at the men of the world.

The whole dynamic of the girls' lives seems to be that they are rich

prep-school stoners who dress flamboyantly and have rigid, antiseptic

relationships with their parents. The decor of their rooms and the decor

of the girls themselves is probably monstrously tacky on purpose; not

meant to be taken literally. It sort of shows you what's in their heads;

fluff, feathers, glitter and smoke.

In their desperate attempt to be feminist/radical/revolutionaries who

defend the honor of women everywhere, they take the completely wrong

path and wind up raped, messed up and worse. They allowed themselves to

be used, and then got furious at the men for using them. They handled

the whole thing in a childish, super-hero-wannabe way. And they paid for

it.

I think Thora Birch looked cute in those goofy getups. Even though her

character made little or no sense. I saw her as the ultimate

rich-kid-acting-out-against-parental-control archetype. And her

now-learned sister gives her a nice life lesson

This really is as bad as people have commented. I thought anything would be at least watchable with Dominique and Thora in it, but I was wrong. Absolute, jaw-dropping, unbelievably bad performances from everyone involved, in wildly distracting outfits and makeup. And I like the actresses - in other movies. I liked Lolita, American Beauty, Ghost World. What happened?

Thankfully, it has been a little while since I saw it and it is starting to fade from my memory.

The plot, which was hard to determine, was plain silly. Since when does a tile bathroom go up in flames from a Bic lighter? Oh yeah, at the end of this crap.

Wow, did this movie ever suck. I don't usually write commentary, but for any girl who might think that this movie has anything to do with female empowerment, watch something else. The girls claim they want revenge on the cruelty of a male-dominated society that uses women only for their reproductive and pleasure-giving capacity, but the whole time all they do is bitch about wanting someone to complete them and make their lives meaningful, thereby contradicting the intent by inferring that men make our lives meaningful. argh. an hour and a half of my life I can never get back.