Review of S.F.W.

Introduction

When a gang of apparently unmotivated terrorists take hostage the customers of a convenience store, the public blink twice and change the channel. When said terrorists threaten to kill the hostages unless their mundane exploits are broadcast on TV 24 hours a day, it becomes a feeding frenzy. After a month of being on the receiving end of mundane misanthropic vitriol and watching emaciated slackers crash on a diet considerably lacking in complex carbs, the obsessed public are saved by a blood-bath. The two survivors: media shy Wendy (Reece Witherspoon) and smirky anarchic wise-ass Cliff Spab (Stephen Dorff), who find themselves at the receiving end of public adulation and media scrutiny thanks, mostly, to their much publicized love affair whilst confined.

What there is of a narrative follows Spab`s attempts to track down the elusive Wendy and resume his rootless existence where he left off, but both Spab and Wendy find their perspectives and their environments changed forever. As a satirical prophecy of the cultural dominance of reality TV, this isn`t exactly Nostradamus, as a study of Western moral decline, it`s not exactly Chomsky and as a romance it`s about as passionate as a damp tree stump. What it does feature, in an ingenious coup, is a pre-stardom Tobey Magure in a redundant cameo as a homeless tweaker… enjoy!

Video

Average video, muddy and dirty in places, but nothing worth getting your panties in a twist over. And, with the risk of coming over all Dorff-esque, who really gives a f*** anyway.

Audio

See above, only slightly louder.

Features

I`m getting tired of saying this and you`re probably getting tired of hearing it, but once more for posterity: MGM back-catalogue disc. NOTHING.

Conclusion

The film is best described not in words but by quoting the stolid creative impoverishment of its own key image: Dorff, the self-consciously non-conformist anti-hero, strutting down the street in slow motion, his face a moody melange of posed weariness, his actions injected with freeze-dried soul by the generic whining of Radiohead`s `Creep`. It is perhaps the most depressingly unoriginal illustration of Gen-X disillusionment in film history and it perfectly encapsulates the itchy emptiness of this ham-fisted, soft-headed `satire` about the perils of misbegotten fame.

The central ironic notion is, presumably, why would anyone idolize such empty-headed cretins, and the answer, presumably, is that their emptiness echoes a larger hollow in the culture. But whilst the film strains feebly for some kind of intellectual significance, its ambitions are at odds with the uneven kinder-punk tone and petty nihilism spouted by its screenplay. Spab, who speaks in mutilated post-modern aphoristic clichés about his suburban disenfranchisement (in other words, lots of crass language and louche declarations of apathy), his tortured soulessness, his tragic, nowhere existence, leaking cynical sarcasm about everything but his own maudlin self-pity.

Since Dorff, in standard Gen-X anguished, grungy pretty-boy mode, has made a career out of cringe-making slackers, it should be a surprise that he still can`t convince as one. With his salon-mussed hair, chiseled jaw and manicured stubble, he looks like a Sunset-Adonis in Nirvana-drag, who even in the supposed "love" scenes looks like he`s rehearsing for his latest heroin chic CK ad. Witherspoon meanwhile seems utterly lost in her meager role, not nurtured by the threadbare screenplay which surrenders to simply stringing together a few indistinct vignettes but still manages to be utterly incoherent. Ultimately however, the film can`t decide whether it wants to advocate the withering contempt of its hero or satirize it.

The final flashback to the fatal shootout is shot with a glitchy kinetic energy and there are fleeting, almost subliminal moments that seem to capture some of the essence of the loss that has is still being felt from the corruption of American dream, without the blight of the film`s persistent hypocrisy. And there`s a witty final moment where Spab and Wendy, cast aside from the media spotlight are forced to relive their 15 minutes indefinitely and yet with a robotic willingness. The central problem however, remains its simple and fatal inability to say anything about anything, or even anything about nothing. Spab isn`t a prophet, and the movie knows it, but he`s not even an interesting loser. He proves a truly conventional bore, delivering warmed over angst without insight; if only the attitudes expressed were as heinous as the movie, he might have been on to something.