I like many movies from the ‘90s and ‘00s, and I have always been a big fan of Amanda Peet, so a viewing of Whipped was long overdue. I will say right now . . . If you can find any other movie from the year 2000 that feels more like a movie from the year 2000 then I will eat the massively baggy jeans that I used to wear throughout the 1990s.
Written and directed by Peter M. Cohen, what you have here is the tale of three men who consider themselves as players, or wannabe players. Brad (Brian Van Holt) is smarmy, cocky, and selfish. He also has a job that deals with the stock market. He is what you would think of when you think of some douchebag named Brad, or even Chad. Zeke (Zorie Barber) is similar, but his persona also incorporates the sensitive soul of an art lover. Jonathan (Jonathan Abrahams) tries to match his friends, but he isn’t made of quite the same stuff. So he masturbates. A lot. And then there’s Eric (Judah Domke), the married man who wants to continue to find vicarious thrills through the related exploits of his friends. These men are all challenged when three of them end up dating the seemingly perfect Mia (Amanda Peet).
Based much more on dialogue than action, and with characters often taking time to speak directly to the camera as they discuss their various life experiences and dating techniques, Whipped cannot do enough to make you forget that it’s a low-budget character piece. It doesn’t help that only one of the characters is likeable, and it isn’t one of the male characters, so spending time with them is more of a chore than a pleasant distraction.
It also doesn’t help that writer-director Cohen also clearly loved Swingers and decided he could make something just as good. He is far off the mark, but makes his own incompetence much more obvious by constantly reminding you that Swingers exists, is a MUCH better film, and should be something you decide to rewatch instead of sticking with this.
There are moments to enjoy though. An opening sequence sets up the characters with a good bit of humour that allows viewers to laugh AT them. There’s also a very smart little sequence that feels like the typical “guys chatting to one another while playing basketball” moment, a trope brilliantly skewered by the fact that all of the characters here are absolutely terrible at playing the game. Whether it is a clumsy metaphor or another way to undermine the words of the characters with their actions, it works. Sadly, no other scenes in the movie are that clever.
Jokes are set up at random, with punchlines that just don’t work, characters become harder and harder to believe in as real people, bad attitudes don’t really change, and that all means that the film also lacks the sexy cool that it wanted to have (something that Swingers has in spades).
Peet almost makes this worthwhile, portraying another beautiful woman who can hold her own with the men around her, but her male co-stars, suffering both from the writing and their own performances (with Domke, in particular, standing out as someone who answered a call for a very different movie), drag things back down at every turn.
Oh, and as if this review wasn’t enough to put you off, let me warn you that this is another movie that tries to gain some goodwill at the very end by throwing in a number of outtakes. None of them are funny. None.
3/10
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