Very Bad Things

Four friends:Moore(Leland Orser), Michael(Jeremy Piven), Adam(Daniel Stern), and Robert (Christian Slater) take their soon to be wed friend Kyle(Jon Favreau) on his bachelor party to Vegas. And next thing you know after a lot of booze and coke, Piven kills a hooker. Isn't that always how your Vegas trips end? The five friends fearing comdemnation of all of them decide to dispose of the body and act like nothing ever happened. Only things don't work out so easy.

Peter Berg's writing/directing debut Very Bad Things is a rather auspicious one. Berg is determined to make this a dark comedy no matter what... only the dialogue feels ad libbed and the situations seem forced. Whether or not the film works for you will no doubt be based on the assinine behavior of the friends the rest of the film. I didn't buy into any of it. Throw in some overacting from Cameron Diaz and an underuse of Jeanne Tripplehorn...and you get a mess!

Berg would later go on to make The Rundown, an adaptation of Friday Night Lights, and a not bad political action film The Kingdom. So it would seem he just needs someone else script to do. I'd be hard pressed to say any of the actors were that good, but I will say that Christian Slater does just about everything he can do to make his part work. Still... the second half just doesn't make any sense and is rarely funny. It does have a bizarre ending... and I'm not sure if that helps.

40/100

The Kingdom

The Kingdom is from actor/director Peter Berg. Berg made a name for himself in directing for his last two efforts: The Rundown and Friday Night Lights. Both turned a little profit allowing him to go nuts here with a big budget political-action film. "The Kingdom" refers to the a section of Saudi Arabia with a lot of westerners live. A series of violent terror strikes kills 70 plus people. One of Foxx's best friends was killed in a blast prompting Foxx to use his connections to go investigate.

His team includes the surly Chris Cooper (Don't placate me like I'm your mother boy!), the out of her element Jennifer Garner, and the cheap comic relief Jason Bateman. When you get down to it, The Kingdom is just another fish out of water story with an overly complicated first 80 minutes culminating in a fantastic climax. Berg clearly knows how to direct an action film. The final sequence is one of the best choreographed action sequences I have ever seen.

All of the actors playing the Saudi's are excellent especially Ashraf Barhom as the liason to the FBI. Cooper is criminally underused here. If I had it my way, Cooper would be in every film along with Michael Rooker, William H. Macy, William Sadler, and Andre Braugher. Foxx is fine as the lead who does a solid job with the action scenes.

I clearly would like to see Berg do some more material. Word is he has some crappy Will Smith/Charlize Theron film coming out later this year. I like both of those actors, but they have a terrible history of picking films. The Kingdom is fairly decent flick that's not very memorable.

60/100