Boogie Nights Redux

Rating: 1/10 (3 June 2016)

One of those films so aswim in the culture of porn that you wonder why....oh yes, there's that, the seeming limitless appetite of Hollywood for pure, unadulterated trash with a heavily misogynistic overtone. Maybe the word should be undertow. Everything that passes for a plot is mere window-dressing, what sustains this awful effort is the lurid atmosphere. And there is one disturbing element that is so prominent it can't be an accident. The children in this film, appearing in very disturbing scenes - it's downright degenerate. "Boogie Nights" used banal acting and a tired plot to mimic the feel of porn films. So it could claim (a lame claim) to be a parody, although its moral emptiness was so close to the real thing it might as well have been the real thing. "The Nice Guys" has something of the same feel. The exploitation of women and young girls, dumb scenes (hundreds of rounds shot, no one hit), cheesy music, how really different it is from the junk the porn industry turns out - except for two A-list actors?