I could just say that Very Bad Things is a very bad movie. But that would be too easy. No, this is a film so uniquely bad, so frustratingly uncomfortable to sit through, that its badness begs for elaborate deconstruction.

For starters, it's unoriginal. The film's plot is strikingly similar to the far more effective Andrew McCarthy movie, Stag, but since both films were likely developed around the same time, I'll chalk that up to coincidence.

Very Bad Things begins with a quintet of yuppie pals (Christian Slater, Jon Favreau, Daniel Stern, Jeremy Piven and Leland Orser) heading to Las Vegas for a bachelor party. There's a lot of drinking and drugging but the fun and games end when rough sex leads to a hooker's accidental death. Rather than call the cops and risk tainting their squeaky clean lives, they try and cover-up the death. But disposing of the body isn't as easy as they think and the decision ends up leading the boys right down the moral slip-and-slide. One thing leads to another and bodies start dropping like flies in order to keep the secret of what went on in that hotel room.

We're supposed to see that everything would have been okay if they'd just told the truth to begin with. Director Peter Berg also wants us to see how easily any of us would accept the death of another human being if it meant saving our own asses. But he fails to give us one remotely likable character to whom we can relate, so we can't identify with their dilemma. Everyone in the film is either grotesquely annoying or just plain despicable. Berg even manages the seemingly impossible feat of making Cameron Diaz unlikable.

Berg isn't a doctor, but he plays one on Chicago Hope. Judging from his debut behind the camera, he can't direct either. The film's tone is horridly erratic. It's a black comedy that completely misfires. Berg wants us to laugh at the parade of sick and disgusting moments, but he isn't a deft enough craftsman to elicit laughs from the horror. His efforts to shock are far too obvious. To be fair, some of the gallows humor works -- but not nearly enough to outweigh the moments that are just plain disturbing.

The first time director also has trouble letting his actors know when less is more. Everyone seems to be screaming so loud in every scene that I began to wonder how the whole cast avoided getting laryngitis. For that reason alone, Very Bad Things may be the most annoying movie ever made.

It also completely lacks any surprises. For no apparent reason, the majority of the movie is a flashback, and the device ends up draining the film of any hint of suspense. Despite its predictability, Berg's script is actually just a few rewrites away from being decent. But his clumsy direction and the irritating performances don't help the words translate to the screen. It's hard to say who does the worst acting in the film, but easily the most unwatchable is Christian Slater, who once again trots out his tiresome Jack Nicholson impersonation as he spouts self-help psychobabble. This mockery of the self-help movement would have been funny -- but Slater's performance is too lazy to get it across.

Perhaps most disappointing is the fact that some of the dark humor actually does work. There are a couple of genuinely big laughs, especially towards the end of the film -- but it's too late. By that time, most of the audience will have probably fled the theater.

(c) Copyright 1998