Body Shots

Last year I reviewed Very Bad Things, a positively awful film that showed human behavior at its very worst. I remember taking a shower after seeing it, trying to get the stench off me. Well, I never thought it possible, but Body Shots is even worse. I should have covered myself in plastic Saran Wrap like the two guys in Booty Call before going to see this one.

Two lines of dialogue are the most memorable to me in dismissing Body Shots. The first one comes from Jane (Amanda Peet) to Rick (Sean Patrick Flanery) in the din of a Los Angeles pick-em-up bar: "I’m available for sex." Gee, Jane, it’s good to see that you took that sex education class so seriously. You must have been sick on the day that Miss Crabtree went over sexually transmitted diseases.

Then there’s the line from Trent (Ron Livingston), while he surveys the action on the floor of the same bar he just snuck into: "Let’s get to work." Trent, your parents would be so proud of you.

The central theme of Body Shots is date rape. But that subject is treated more as a subplot to the bigger story, which happens to be about nothing much at all. The movie serves as an exposure to the degradation of the human condition as seen through a one night, drink-til-you-drop experience of four males and four females, all in their twenties.

Each character is interviewed in the same style of MTV’s "Real World." We get to hear their deepest thoughts about life. The most profound comment is this: "Sex without love equals violence." Quite the little social philosophers, those twentysomethings are.