Dull male fantasy

Rating: 1/10 (4 November 1999)

I was hoping for a nicely disturbing story with some really interesting oddball characters in it. Instead, the story's just a male midlife-crisis fantasy ("my only problem is my annoying wife"), and the characters are cliched caricatures who only manage to irritate the viewer. (Maybe the simplistic male theme and perspective explain the one-dimensional female protagonists?) The movie tries to hide its thin plot and dull characters behind the cheap expedient of disconnectedly breaking a few "taboos" here and there -- masturbation, nudity, voyeurism, drugs and paedophilia, in no particular order. So what! Shocking? Titillating? No: simply boring. I cannot fathom why critics would detect originality in this loser of a movie. In fact, I think it's an interesting social commentary that apparently many viewers find profundity in this movie, and identify with its dull, dull, dull characters. Now THAT is scary and disturbing...