For the first Bad Movie Review of 2015, Margaux suggested Behaving Badly, which currently holds a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film spends 97 minutes proving how it earned it. What a shitpile. Let’s get started!
Trevor: Well, that was a suitably terrible way to start the new year. The first BMR of 2014 was Stolen, and Behaving Badly makes Stolen look like The Godfather. I can see why this is at a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Margaux: I don’t even know where to start with this movie, it was so unbelievably bad I thought we were in the snow globe from St. Elsewhere. I mean, even just the title, Behaving Badly, is that grammatically correct? All I can think about is Val Kilmer in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: “Who taught you grammar? Badly’s an adverb.”
Trevor: That was one of about a thousand things this movie did wrong. First and foremost, the flippant tone did not work at all. We’re five minutes in, and not only does our sociopath of a protagonist Rick have zero reaction to finding what he thinks is his mom’s corpse, but he makes reference to her “deep-throating a breathing tube.” That’s not cavalier or funny, it’s the kind of misplaced confidence that only engenders thoughts like “This is who we’re supposed to be rooting for?” And it doesn’t help that Rick isn’t posited as an antihero; if this were, say, James McAvoy in Filth, that would be a pretty in-character thing to say. But you can’t have “deep-throating a breathing tube” come out of the mouth of the same character who later gives the love interest her own “personal star.”
Margaux: And you’re only talking about the first five minutes of this movie. I was so confused and then angry at the opening of this shit heap. First, we get an unflattering close up of Nat Wolff’s pathetic junk, then we get inundated with why his life is so shitty – which like, his earring is a dead give away of that. Then the rest of the painful 90 minutes DOES NOT ANSWER A SINGLE THING BUT HAS GARY BUSEY AND JUSTIN BIEBER CAMEOS TO “MAKE UP” FOR LACK OF PLOT. Fuck this movie. And fuck Nat Wolff, that kid has a face you just want to punch.
Oh, and comment about the tone, WHERE THE HELL DID ALL THIS RELIGIOUS BULLSHIT COME FROM?!?! Everyone in that town should be in jail for statutory rape or worse.
Trevor: This movie was all over the place; it’s problems definitely start with Wolff, who’s only direction seems to have been “Jay Baruchel wouldn’t return my phone calls, so act like him!”
I will say, though: his friend Billy was mildly amusing. The only times I laughed were when Billy was on screen, even though Rick (Wolff) really plays up his sociopathic tendencies by deliberately walking in on Billy after Billy’s mother told Rick he was masturbating. Who wants to be in the same room as their best friend while the guy jerks off? Behaving Badly is so unnecessarily vulgar, everyone’s mind is in the gutter.
The main problem with this is that it’s pure adolescent fantasy: Rick is lusted after by every woman he comes across, he gets to drive a kick-ass Aston Martin, he always has some witty comeback. The writer of this book (yes, readers, this was a goddamn published novel) has clearly never matured past high school, where he must have had a really tough time. I’m sure the novel While I’m Dead…Feed the Dog has some graphic passages about the size of Rick’s dick or how hard he punches. Frankly kind of pathetic.
Margaux: There were lots of off-putting visual cues, too. Since you mentioned Billy, who I thought was definitely on the spectrum and that was he was Rick’s only friend – cause Rick has clearly just been released from a psych ward. But anyway, when Billy is beating it and Rick walks in -AND DOES NOT IMMEDIATELY LEAVE- there’s a poster behind Billy’s head that reads: ‘BEAT IT’, I noticed it at the exact moment that Billy jizzes and I felt like I need a bleach shower. Also, there schools mascot was a hamster which is only funny to the prop designer.
I do agree that this is some male, adolescent fantasy – Elizabeth Shue wouldn’t fuck Nat Wolff with a ten foot, electric whisk (Sadly, there is a scene where Shue, high on E, masterbates with a eletric whisk and if I were in the theater watching, I’d of ran up to the screen and ripped it down).
Trevor: Elizabeth Shue, playing Billy’s mom Pamela, immediately comes on to Billy after hearing he got a blowjob from a stripper (statutory rape incident #1, readers). She has to talk this guy into sex even though she looks like Elizabeth Shue and he’s a fucking virgin who gets to live out the first of many teenage fantasies in this movie.
And even though Rick won’t shut up about how in love he is with Nina Pennington (Selena Gomez), he goes through with the tryst with zero compunction.
I gotta say, Gomez has matured nicely, she looks all of 12 years old and – holy shit, she’s 21? Well, no one told her chipmunk cheeks. Gomez, to me, is in the same camp as Ariana Grande: women who look like tweens. If a guy finds either of them sexy, it just comes off as creepy.
Margaux: Again, just reminds me of something better, the “Sexy Baby” episode of 30 Rock. That’s the former Disney child star syndrome. It’s creepy and gross but fits this movies grating tone perfectly. I mean, come one, what did you expect? And you can probably thank Gomez for that Bieber cameo.
Part of this movie’s convoluted plot is that Rick makes a bet with a weirdo from school that wears a newsie hat everyday of his life, that he’s gonna bang Gomez by fucking ARBOR DAY for a thousand bucks. So naturally, when Rick works up the nerve to ask out Nina, their first date is to a funeral. Cause nothing promises sex more than death. And having your half-retarded friend tag along for the ride really sets the mood, too.
Trevor: Yeah, there were a couple terrible running jokes in Behaving Badly, among them:
- Latin teachers continued to die
- Scenes were repeated with characters using different punchlines or insults, none of which landed
And we need to talk about St. Lola (played by Mary-Louise Parker, who pulls double duty as Rick’s alcoholic mom, the latter of which is spectacularly annoying). She’s overly sexualized, because Behaving Badly is nothing if not a visual representation of the Madonna-whore complex found in a lot of men’s rights activists, and the fact that she looks like Rick’s mom adds a weird, uncomfortable incestuous undertone to the whole thing (speaking of incest, when Billy’s mom is on E she licks her son’s face, causing him to remark “She hasn’t licked me since I was 10!” because everyone in this movie is trying to one-up the vulgarity).
Margaux: MENS RIGHTS, TREVOR, SHEESH!
Not only did those running “jokes” never land or go anywhere or do anything, I was not understanding this whole, “guardian saint to guide you through, that also happens to look EXACTLY like your Mom”. Because don’t forget, at the very end, Billy’s Mom turns into his saint to help him return overdue, cum stained library books. Not to help him go to college and stop stripping, why would a guardian saint do that?
At the end of my notes I wrote, “what’s this movie about again?”
Trevor: Margaux, all teenage guys want cock mentors who look like our moms.
I need to point out that Cary Elwes – THE DREAD PIRATE FUCKING ROBERTS – plays Rick’s dad, and seems to be doing an impression of Jim Carrey in Liar Liar. It doesn’t work.
At one point, Rick and Billy decide to use Rick’s stripper sister Kristen and all her stripper friends to do a shitty Risky Business knockoff. It doesn’t work.
The always-welcome Patrick Warburton shows up as the school principal, who hates Rick and Billy for undisclosed reasons, and also has a camera in the girl’s locker room (statutory rape incident #2).
Heather Graham shows up as a needlessly sexualized lawyer who accidentally takes E and invites Rick inside for tequila. Later, as Rick’s boss, she tells him to wear his tightest jeans (statutory rape incident #3).
I hated this fucking movie so much.
Margaux: There was so much about Behaving Badly I hated that we haven’t talked about yet! And to that end, the satanists behind this movie took the phrase, “everything but the kitchen sink” way to literal.
You forgot to mention that Rick’s dad and Billy’s dad are in some sort of clandestine relationship with an underage hooker (ed. note: statutory rape incident #4). For reference, Nina insists that Rick call the cops for a fender bender that happens after their funeral date. Yet, bitch does not bat one eyelash at the UNDERAGE HOOKER, SITTING ACROSS FROM HER IN A SMALL DINER BOOTH.
And how could I forget, the whole reason they even find out about Rick and Billy’s Dads, ps: Billy’s Dad is a gun nut for no reason other than to solidify that he’s deeply in the closet for lolz? ANYWAY, our gay dads happens because Rick lies to Nina, in his weak ass efforts to ‘woo’ her, that he knows Josh Groban. BECAUSE ALL THE TWEENS LOVE THE GROBS.
Of course there was a “subplot” involving mobsters, too. But the only redeeming moment in this entire trash can fire was when Rick’s stripper sister gets into Stanford. RUN AWAY GIRL, RUN.
Trevor: The Lithuanian mob, who was probably included because LOL “Lithuania” is a funny word. And let’s not forget, the mysterious head of the mob was none other than kindly Father Krumins, played for some goddamn reason by Jason Lee, because Behaving Badly was put on earth to destroy that which you love.
I can’t even talk about the plot anymore. We’re just regurgitating things about this movie that we hated, which, to be fair, is exactly what the movie did, except we’re not insisting that everything is so funny and irreverent.
Oh, there’s nowhere to put this organically, but I will say the film perked up whenever Dylan McDermott was on screen. He knew he was in a piece of shit movie, and at the very least he committed to playing a creep. But after Hostages and Stalker, McDermott is probably used to giving it his all in shitty projects.
Margaux: When I first got out of college, I worked on a really terrible movie called Doggie Boogie (it might still be called Doggie B on Netflix, for those interested) and I honestly thought I’d never see a movie as bad as Doggie Boogie for the rest of my life. But I’ve finally found a movie stupider than a movie about teaching DOGS HOW TO DANCE and that’d be Behaving Badly. Congrats kids, we did it!
Trevor: How does this stack up against the high-water marks of BMR, The Third Wheel, The Host, and Christmas with the Kranks? I mean, this is fascinatingly, almost hypnotically bad.
Margaux: Hmm, it’s sort of a tough call but what sealed Behaving Badly as the worst movie we’ve subjected ourselves to is at the very end, when it’s revealed they actually have a dog.
Trevor: You mean the dog from THE TITLE OF THE SOURCE NOVEL, who we don’t see until the first of this movie’s interminable, never-ending, Return of the King style conclusion?
Margaux: Well, I’m not talking about how odd it is that recently de-virginized Rick knows EXACTLY what crabs looks like without really even glancing at his dick for longer than 2.5 seconds. So yeah, that thrown-in, last minute dog that I was sure those horrible children never fed in the first place.
Trevor: That’s as good an example as any of this movie’s ineptitude. This is normally where I’d ask what you’re thinking for star count, but I’m gonna go ahead and assume 0? I wish WordPress let us give negative stars. This movie is so bad that I’m now forgetting other, better movies.
Margaux: I would suggest that instead of stars, we gather every known copy of Behaving Badly and burn it on the producer’s lawn.
Trevor: The fact that this is on Netflix makes me want Netflix not to exist. There I said it.
Margaux: Until I’m done watching the second season of The Fall, Netflix is okay by me. But they better watch out when episode six pops up on my list.
Trevor: Okay, zero stars is it. Next week we’ll watch Doggie B.
Margaux: WHY DO YOU WANT TO HURT ME?!
We should have just watched JCVD and Adam Brody in Welcome to the Jungle, I’ve got soooooo many Guns’n’Roses jokes to burn off.
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