I began watching this as a joke. I was pleasantly surprised.

Rating: 6/10 (20 March 2018)

Call me immature, but whenever I was looking through a list of top rated movies and saw one about Kevin Spacey wanting to bang a teenager, my interest was well caught. That is genuinely how I began watching this film, just to see how well it aged considering how Spacey's career has turned out. I have to say though, I'm absolutely shocked at how well this movie turned out and how memorable it was.
Kevin Spacey; admittedly; is a very good actor. He absolutely shines it in this role as Lester, by far the star of the show, as Kevin Spacey does do good with sadistic roles. That isn't a joke. I mean, it literally says that on his very own IMDb page, check the Trade Mark section. "Often plays cold-blooded and sadistic characters," last I checked, which was as I write this, it does indeed say that. For the sake of it, I'm going to ignore the controversy, although it has bothered me how not very many, if at all, new reviews I've seen for this movie that don't talk about the issue. I definitely think it's worth mentioning for the context of the film. It's like as time went on more and more inside jokes you could apply to this movie were created, which made it so much more funny. Enough of that, though.
Like I said, the actual movie surprised me. A lot. I like to think of the movies I watch, and how good they are, partially based on how well I remember them after some time, along with their merit. I have to say, I've watched a few other movies after this one, but I still remember it very well. I don't even need to think about it.
That being said, it has its fair share of issues which keeps it being higher than a seven. I know that a lot of the dialogue is supposed to be cringe, but there's a difference between bad dialogue and dialogue that is supposed to be bad. This might be unpopular, but in my opinion, the weakest link in the cast is Wes Bentley playing Ricky Fitts. I know who he is supposed to be as a person, and he looks the part and feels it, but I genuinely don't enjoy the way he delivers lines. It isn't good.
Another issue I had with this movie were a few of the plot points. I don't want to spoil anything for this old movie, but Jesus, Colonel Fitts takes some huge jumps of logic to get to the conclusions he does get to. No normal person would think like that.
I do believe this movie is worth seeing. It doesn't, by any means, contain the most gut wrenching things I've ever watched in a film, but it'll be good for a laugh and a few, "What am I watching right now," moments.