''Very Bad Things'' is a 1998 American

black comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the olde ...

written and directed by

Peter Berg Peter Berg (born March 11, 1964) is an American director, producer, writer, and actor. His directorial film works include the black comedy ''Very Bad Things'' (1998), the action comedy ''The Rundown'' (2003), the sports drama '' Friday Night Lig ...

in his feature film directorial debut and starring

Cameron Diaz Cameron Michelle Diaz (born August 30, 1972) is an American actress. With a variety of works in film, she is widely recognised for her work in romantic comedies and animation. Diaz has received various accolades, including nominations for ...

Jon Favreau Jonathan Kolia Favreau (; born October 19, 1966) is an American actor and filmmaker. As an actor, Favreau has appeared in films such as ''Rudy (film), Rudy'' (1993), ''PCU (film), PCU'' (1994), ''Swingers (1996 film), Swingers'' (1996), ''Very ...

, Daniel Stern,

Jeremy Piven Jeremy Samuel Piven (born July 26, 1965) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Ari Gold in the comedy series ''Entourage'', for which he won a Golden Globe Award and three consecutive Emmy Awards. He also starred in the British ...

Christian Slater Christian Michael Leonard Slater (born August 18, 1969) is an American actor and producer. He made his film debut with a leading role in ''The Legend of Billie Jean'' (1985) and gained wider recognition for his breakthrough role as Jason "J.D." D ...

Leland Orser Leland Jones Orser (born August 6, 1960) is an American actor. He has appeared in numerous film and television roles, notably as Lucien Dubenko in the television series '' ER'' (2004–2009) and Sam Gilroy in the '' Taken'' film series (2008–20 ...

Kobe Tai Kobe Tai is an American pornographic actress. Pornographic film career Tai was a contract performer with Vivid Entertainment. In 2011, ''Complex'' ranked her first on its list of "The Top 50 Hottest Asian Porn Stars of All Time". Mainstream ap ...

and

Jeanne Tripplehorn Jeanne Marie Tripplehorn (born June 10, 1963) is an American actress. She began her career on stage, acting in several plays throughout the early 1990s, including Anton Chekhov's '' Three Sisters'' on Broadway. Her film career began with the rol ...

Plot

Kyle Fisher organizes a bachelor party in a Las Vegas hotel with his friends: Charles, Robert, and brothers Adam and Michael. Tina, a stripper/prostitute, is accidentally killed by Michael in the bathroom. Soon after, a security guard comes to investigate the ruckus and discovers Tina's corpse. In desperation, Robert stabs the guard to death. He then convinces the group to dismember the bodies, bury them in the desert, and never speak of it again. At the rehearsal dinner, Adam cracks under the pressure from guilt, leading to a confrontation with Michael outside, with Adam threatening to turn him over to the police. Michael is convinced to leave, however while leaving, he turns to ram Adam's beloved minivan. Adam runs in front of his van and is crushed in the collision. In the hospital, Adam whispers something to his wife Lois before dying, as Robert looks on through a glass window. Lois demands answers about what happened in Las Vegas when she finds a written confession by Adam. Kyle makes up a story about Adam sleeping with a prostitute. Robert, suspecting she does not believe them, kills Lois, later framing Michael by luring him to Lois' house, where he kills him. He concocts a story about a Michael/Lois/Adam love triangle to answer any interrogation by police. After these events and being named beneficiary of Adam and Lois' estate, Kyle breaks down and confesses the story to his fiancée Laura, who demands that her dream wedding proceed as planned. On the wedding day, Robert confronts Kyle, demanding the money from Adam's life insurance policy. He refuses and a fight ensues which ends with Laura bludgeoning Robert. During the ceremony, Kyle and Charles realize that Robert has the wedding rings. Charles goes to retrieve them, opening a door that knocks Robert down a stairwell where he dies. Laura demands Kyle bury his body in the desert and then ensure no loose ends remain by killing Charles. Ultimately, he cannot go through with it and as he drives home, he crashes into an oncoming car. After the collision, Kyle's legs are amputated below the knee and Charles is a quadriplegic confined to a motorized wheelchair, leaving Laura to care for both of them, in addition to raising Adam and Lois's sons. As Laura watches Kyle with the two boys, it hits her that her life and dreams are totally ruined and has a nervous breakdown as she runs out of the house and collapses screaming in the street.

Cast

as Robert Boyd *

as Laura Garrety-Fisher *

as Kyle Fisher * Daniel Stern as Adam Berkow *

as Michael Berkow *

as Charles Moore *

as Lois Berkow *

Joey Zimmerman Joseph Paul Zimmerman (born June 10, 1986) is an American actor known for his role as Dylan Piper in '' Halloweentown'' franchise. Early life Zimmerman was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico to Kat and Harry Zimmerman, a Los Alamos-based actor. Hi ...

as Adam Berkow Jr. *

as Tina

Production

''Very Bad Things'' was noted for having a very similar plot setup to ''

Stag Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

'', a film which originally aired on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

in June 1997. Director

told ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'' in 1998, "See, the first time I'd ever heard about ''Stag'' was after I had finished writing the screenplay for ''Very Bad Things''. When we were at the point of getting the film financed, we had a lawyer look over the script and the film to make sure there weren't too many similarities. I mean, there were things we had to change; for example, one of the characters in the movie was a baker, and there was also a baker in our script, so we had to change some very minor things. But as far as I understand it, the two films take very different approaches to the material. I will say this: I think it would be interesting to get, like, three different directors—say, Soderbergh,

Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...

, and Coppola—and have them all tell the exact same story in a different way."

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film has an approval rating of 41% based on reviews from 58 critics, with the consensus, "Mean-spirited and empty". On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

it has a score of 31% based on reviews from 24 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Background Ed Mintz founded Ci ...

gave the film a grade of "D+" on scale of A to F.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

wrote that ''Very Bad Things'' is "not a bad movie, just a reprehensible one". Some critics appreciated the cold-blooded approach. Maitland McDonagh of ''

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...

'' wrote, "In a world filled with crude movie sitcoms, Berg's bitter, worst-possible-case scenario really does stand alone". Some critics have viewed the film more favorably in the years since its release. In a retrospective for Daily Grindhouse,

Preston Fassel Preston Fassel (born September 11, 1985) is an author and journalist primarily known for his work in the horror, science fiction, and crime genres. His work has appeared in Fangoria, Rue Morgue, Screem magazine, and on Cinedump.com. He is the a ...

praised the film as a critique of

bro culture Bro culture is a subculture of young people (originally young men, hence "brother culture") who spend time partying with others like themselves. Although the original image of the bro lifestyle is associated with sports apparel and fraternities, ...

, writing "it’s the perfect deconstruction of the responsibility-free bro-comedy, a movie that looks at the real-life consequences of so much 'innocent' bad behavior," comparing its philosophy to the "

Homer's Enemy "Homer's Enemy" is the twenty-third episode of the eighth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons''. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on May 4, 1997. "Homer's Enemy" was directed by Jim Reard ...

" episode of ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...

'' and calling it "the brilliant anti-comedy we need today."

References

External links