S.F.W.
Tags: comedy, cult, violence, psychedelic, absurd, satire, tragedy, romantic

Plot synopsis:
Cliff Spab and his friend Joe Dice go out one evening to buy beer from a convenience store, where a group of masked and heavily armed terrorists take them and three other people hostage. The terrorists, who call themselves S.P.L.I.T. Image (a play on "Split Image"), have a video camera with which they tape their hostages' every word and action. During a month-long standoff with the police, S.P.L.I.T. Image's only demand is that their broadcasts be televised live worldwide TV, or else the hostages will be killed. S.P.L.I.T. Image makes good on said threat by killing two of the hostages. Cliff, Joe, and a beautiful teenage girl named Wendy Pfister are the only surviving captives. After 36 days, Cliff becomes indifferent to being killed. He says repeatedly, "So Fucking What?", in reply to his captors' death-threats. The coverage of this makes Cliff a media icon.
The movie skips forward to a hospital. Cliff has shot his way to freedom, taking a bullet in the shoulder while Joe has been killed. Despite his friend's demise, Cliff is branded a hero for saving Wendy and killing the terrorists. He's picked up from the hospital by his brother Scott. He is welcomed awkwardly by his domineering father and weak-willed mother. Cliff soon becomes disenchanted with the reporters camped on his front lawn and moves out.
Back on the street, Cliff finds his life changed forever by the convenience store incident. His line – abbreviated as S.F.W. – is on banners, newspapers, CDs, and billboard advertisements. At Burger Boy, the fast food restaurant where he works, Cliff finds his name and image posted alongside a "Special $.36 Spaburger" (named after him), being marketed in commemoration of his 36 days in captivity.
Cliff visits Joe's older sister Monica. She resents the media idolization directed at Cliff, while her deceased brother has gotten neither sympathy nor attention. Cliff spends a night of empty passion with Monica. He visits another friend, Morrow Streeter, who lets Cliff hide out at the elegant home of his lawyer-sister Janet. She advises Cliff to exploit his notoriety for personal gain. Completely lacking in any sense of purpose, Cliff hitchhikes out of Los Angeles. He gets a ride with a disaffected couple, who confide with him about their marital troubles. Realizing that running from his problems is pointless because they will follow him everywhere, Cliff discovers the inspiration he has been seeking. Using his celebrity status to his advantage, Cliff checks into a fancy hotel; when he offers to promote the establishment, he is given a free suite. Cliff holds press conferences, makes public appearances, holds autograph signings, and generally portrays himself as a rebel.
More than anything, Cliff aspires to reunite with Wendy. She has been featured on the news, but refuses to make any statement regarding her ordeal in the convenience store. Cliff reaches out to her and soon a romantic attraction develops, but their relationship is hampered by the reporters and paparazzi who shamelessly tail them. They evade the media and revisit the convenience store, which has been closed down and boarded up as a crime scene. After reminiscing how he and Joe overpowered and killed their captors in a huge gunfight, Cliff tells Wendy he'd like to leave his notoriety behind him, just so the two of them can live out their lives together in a quiet romance.
A few days later, Cliff and Wendy make a public appearance at a local high school. They receive a standing ovation from a crowd of adoring students, who chant Cliff's line: "So Fucking What!" One distraught-looking student, Barbara "Babs" Wyler, does not join in the cheering. After a minute of sitting in angry silence, Babs produces a gun from her book-bag and stands up. With a yell of "EVERYTHING matters!" she fires on Cliff and Wendy, seriously wounding them both. Media attention switches to Babs as she is arrested, booked, and indicted for attempted murder. Her line of "Everything matters" becomes the new public catchphrase, replacing Cliff's "S.F.W.". Reporters and other media people cannot stop talking about Babs' actions. Sharing their own hospital ward, the recovering Cliff and Wendy are elated that their media ordeal is over. They slip away to get married, and to celebrate their newfound privacy.

Review: I just watched S.F.W. and was amazed at how, at least five years before the major trend of 'reality TV' became the in-thing, this movie satirized it, and showed it for how wrong and un-real it is.
I believe her role in this movie was slightly under-rated, she played your typical romantic interest but she also was the reason that Dorff's character didn't lose his mind.
It is ostensibly a hostage-drama set in a Fun-Stop convenience store, but rapidly reveals itself as more; a biting attack on the media circus and the hype machine, a revealing portrayal of suburban life in America, and a comment on the nature of heroes.
The leads are played effortlessly by Stephen Dorff (who seems to not be acting at all)and Reece Witherspoon, with excellent support from B-movie stalwarts Joey Lauren Adams and Jack Noseworthy.
The arrangement of the story (flashbacks are employed heavily) lets you build up a rounded picture of the events that made Spab a hero, not revealing the true account of what happened in the store until near the end.
Up to this point the events are clouded by the media and gossip surrounding the "Fun-Stop Hostage Crisis" and although we are led to believe Spab did something spectacular, the later flashbacks reveal why he is unwilling to assume the mantle of hero and why he seems to be in a bad mood most of the time!.
Way, way ahead of it's time (similarly themed films made years after were Natural Born Killers, Mad City, Truman Show), this is, quite simply, a life-altering, mind-altering film which zeroes in on and then embodies the zeitgeist of the nineties.
Stephen Dorff does a great job, which is important, since the movie is mostly watching him walk around and deal with the stresses of his fame.
S.F.W.Aspect ratio: 1.85:1Sound format: Dolby StereoA feckless young man (Stephen Dorff) becomes an unlikely celebrity after surviving a televised hostage ordeal in his local convenience store, but he's unable to reconcile the tragedy of the siege - in which his best friend (Jack Noseworthy) was killed - with the exaggerated version of events peddled by a ratings-hungry media.Jefery Levy's cult-movie wannabe pairs Dorff alongside relative newcomer Reese Witherspoon in a vicious assault on the contemporary media, depicted here as a soulless entity concerned solely with ratings and money (yeah, so what else is new?).
The message is obvious, but Levy and co-scriptwriter Danny Rubin (GROUNDHOG DAY) revel in their own daring: Dorff and Witherspoon play ordinary characters who emerge from an extraordinary situation and are forced to confront their unexpected (and unwanted) fame.
However, Levy's unflattering view of modern journalism (symbolized by John Roarke as a variety of thinly-disguised real-life TV celebrities who feed off other people's misery, and Gary Coleman in a fleeting, self-deprecating cameo) seems a little distorted and misleading, though clearly filtered through the lead character's personal viewpoint.
The movie doesn't say anything new, but the execution is invigorating.Look out for an early appearance by Tobey Maguire as a young stoner who thinks he's died and gone to heaven when he and his buddy (Dana Allan Young) encounter their idol Dorff on an empty street (a truly hilarious sequence).
I personaly really liked this movie ,i thought Stephen Dorff was great this movie got me interested in him and his other movies!I like the plot its different and doesnt really hide anything its better for a younger crowd 15-21 it can be related to easily by them as it contains a lot of anger and confusion the catch frase is "So F*****g What" which tries to make us c that nothing really matters !
S.F.W. the concept was interesting the plot once watched was lame and boring a true waste of a casts time and a industry's money.Once you see it you will soon forget it!!Stephen Dorff & Reese Witherspoon just waste there time & talents in a really wasted script.
With a better more talented screenwriter and a more talent director the movie could have been so much more mabey even some underground cult film.
But what happens to a story about 5 people that are being held hostage in a convenience store for 36 days, & one of them demands from the hostage takers that all TV-stations should broadcast the entire situation live, turns into a  boring little movie with nothing more than a loud soundtrack and really bad over the top acting in a really bad made for Tv movie of the week for the big screen.Whats funny is that Reese Witherspoon is billed as a main character,  she is on the cover of the DVD box but she is hardly in the movie,  and when she is on screen she shows what talent she does have, but how much of it is wasted.
Stephen Dorff is a great actor, another of the under-rated talents in Hollywood today who seems to find really bad scripts that just really under-rate his talent and "S.F.W." is just another film that is a big mistake on his acting resume.Rounding out the rest of cast that sseem to waste there talents is both Jake Busey and the very laughable not so talented Natasha Gregson Wagner.One film I'm adding to my "Worst Films of 1994" list!!!See it once, if you don't fall asleep, and once the credits roll you will soon forget it..
Cliff Spab (Stephen Dorff) and his next door neighbor best friend since childhood Joe Dice are slacker fast food workers.
It would have been great to have Cliff and Wendy together but it takes a long time for the characters to reunite.
It seems like this movie was made just for Stephen Dorff to act self-important in and appeal to the not-so-bright kids of the grunge generation..
The fact that the whole hostage thing is never explained and barely touched on just shows it is nothing but a poor plot device to get to where the makers wanted to be to make their point.It manages to come across as just an angry youth movie  with it's anger not directed anywhere in particular.
The only point that the film manages to make clearly is that no matter who is the 15 minute celeb or news story that night, TV is all the same.
He should have made SFW instead, As for Stephen Dorff's career, well I guess he can re emerge, Rocky-like and make a film called THE POWER OF TWO a sequel to the only intelligent film he has yet made.
I am 40 years old and can still enjoy watching this movie, it's just so dam good.
The soundtrack is a slice of the music of the time with Soundgardem, L7, Hole and others and its deep cynical undercurrent is straight out of the Kurt Cobain handbook.Stephen Dorff and Reese Witherspoon are both young and as good as I've seen them in any movie, though Dorff has the majority of the screen time, and does a perfectly solid job as a cynical, disaffected youth disgusted with his instant fame derived in a hostage crisis.
I wasn't crazy about Doirff in Blade, but he does a riveting job in this film, pulling off a crass, cynical character who is a natural class clown, but wants to be deeper and is.Again, I find it interesting that a movie that has a bunch of uncomfortable commentary about America and its ruthless media and weapons-saturated culture gets panned on these media boards.
This is not an effects movie, and you may not find it 'exciting' enough if your thing is CGI, but its a totally competent and ambitious indie/starter film (I don't know where in the directors career this movie came out).This is the kind of movie a historian would go for, it was made by someone with ideas in the context of their time, and not some overwrought, over-positioned Hollywood puff piece.
Witherspoon, as always, is extremely beautiful, and seems like the only character in the film that has any depth.
Neat premise, some nifty acting by Dorff and especially Reece Whitherspoon, but unfortunately, this film takes itself WAY too seriously to be taken seriously.
With a lead character like Dorff's, one would assume there would be a little old fashioned, punk rock humor to the proceedings.
Stephen Dorff's character cliff is great its every teenagers dream to ride off into the sunset, not giving a damn about anything and have everyone thinking your a god for doing it.
Its a great film and Reese Witherspoon plays a good part to it......all in all i love it.
The most intriguing thing about this movie is that watching it puts you in a specific time and place, a short lived style in the early to mid 90's that seems like a twilight zone dream.
By the end of the movie, he's lost any redeeming quality and Joey Lauren Adams character's continual whining becomes like nails on a chalk board.
I don't know why more people haven't seen it but if you love cool 90's movies with awesome soundtracks like Soundgarden, Manson and GWAR , then this is a movie you should really check out!
I like Stephen Dorff, he's a cool actor with a great future.
Even more than "Singles," this movie tries to cram grunge music into every nook and cranny to remind you how street-level Reese Witherspoon and Stephen Dorff's character are (along with their friends), but then they make a weird, Disney-moment every time Dorff's character ("Cliff Spab"...AKA the worst name to be repeated EVER) reminisces about their friend.
I'm not going to say what happens, but every time Spab contemplates what went down with his friend, music bussed in from the movie "E.T." gets played, and we're supposed to feel bad for some reason (why, i don't know because Spab wasn't all that close with him in the beginning of the movie or in other scenes either).Secondly, the objective seemed to make sense, that the media and relatives try and cash in from those around them who become famous...but the message easily becomes turned around on the movie itself for cashing in on the attitudes of cynical youths who are biting the bait that this movie produces.Third, it should stay a cult movie and nothing more.
The subjects of this movie became lucky in the film to be celebrities due to a minor news story that realistically would never had happened in real life, and if they would have, people wouldn't give the story more than a week of exposure after-the-fact.
I liked the addition of the music to commemorate the times, but as a movie, there isn't a lot of groundbreaking material to lump it into a deeper category of film or re-release it on Criterion or anything.If you're a fan of grunge music or slacker-movies that let you kill 1.5 hours while you're downing a 6-pack, this might be a fun watch once, but I don't think I'll be owning this..
How the likes of Stephen Dorff and Reese Witherspoon (one of my all time favorite actresses) got messed up in this I'll never know, but I hope they fired their managers afterward.
How the likes of Stephen Dorff and Reese Witherspoon (one of my all time favorite actresses) got messed up in this I'll never know, but I hope they fired their managers afterward.
She might have had a very very small role, but it wasn't worth my time watching this movie for a blink.
I have never been a Reese Witherspoon fan, but I love Renee Zellweger and I rented "Dazed and Confused" (1993) just to see her, but just like this movie, I was disappointed to find out that she is only in it for a moment.
I felt the film would have been better if the first half had dealt with the hostage situation and the second with Spab's elevation to generation spokesperson.
Stephen Dorff is quite good as the slacker cum hero, however the rest of the cast are fairly marginalised and have little to do.
S.F.W is not a great film, but it is not a bad one and is worth a look if you're bored of teen comedies..
A great movie about the hypocrysy of the american media.
Stephen Dorff is brilliant in his role as the anti-hero Spab who has to run away from the media because he has no interest for them, leading him into more and more problems until there is no escape then to just play along with them.
Stephen Dorff and Reese Witherspoon generally choose their films well (with the notable exception of Space Truckers) and serve them well.
This movie will look great on their C.V. though will taint Dorff particularly with the Gen-X tag.
The film is edited so as to lack any real time-scale and is conceptual in nature, with only character sketches and brief insight into the people involved.
i've seen this movie for the first time when i was like 17 or 18, but it's still one my favorites.
The right ideas seem to be there, which makes some of the choices the film-makers made with this movie seem all the more odd.
Characters literally pop up out of nowhere and then disappear again and the story is lacking a real point and a good clear main plot line.The movie basically tries to be a social commentary about today's youth (well 1994's youth of course but it's not like much has changed ever since) and the influence and behavior of the media.
Also as a comedy/parody it falls terribly short.Thing that still kept this movie somewhat going for me was Stephen Dorff, who was perfectly cast for his role.
His characters was about still the only good and interesting thing about this movie.
Reese Witherspoon and Jake Busey are also in this movie but I wonder why.
It's not like their characters get to do much in this movie.
Another thing that makes this movie disappointing and lacking is its rushed ending.
Needless to say, it doesn't work out all that well.I really can't think of any good reason why anyone should ever watch this movie.
This is a must see for everyone, young and old and yes I do believe the media can be this screwed up especially in America.There were some parts of this movie where I just couldn't stop laughing and it portray's how pathetic people try to feed off someone else's success.Never seen anything like it and it will be a long time before something in this genre will even come close.Performances by Stephen Dorff and Reese Witherspoon are out of this world.Just brilliant..
I saw this movie on release ages ago and it's not hard to fall in love with it at first.Stephen Dorff's performance is really amazing.
You never think for a moment he isn't Cliff Spab, with all the pent-up rage, pain, hostility and hilarity that it entails.For the first half of the movie, it's really "the Cliff Spab/Stephen Dorff Show." He goes on a sort of Jack Kerouac road trip, bumping heads and rubbing noses with a variety of characters (and some wonderful actors who play them): Jake Busey (a good movie for once), Joey Lauren Adams (always terrific and smokin' hot here), and Pamela Gidley (quite a complex little cameo).But after his odyssey ends, there doesn't seem to be much of a place to go...the film just stalls.
I was hoping for more of a connection between the final scene, Spab's revelations, and the rest of the movie leading up to that point, but it didn't happen.Never read the book, but it sounds like that ending would have made more sense.
The thing people appear to have missed is that it is entirely tongue in cheek - it is a satire about just this sort of movie.
Someone is projected to movie like fame for no reason, and the apparent lack of order (it is suggested the hostage takers are simply anarchists) is the main premise of the film..
This film, while not the greatest story about media ever told, must be seen...
I guess the idea is cool (I'd like to read the book) but I didn't really enjoy the movie.
He's done pretty well with that so far until a hostage situation turns him into a national hero, which is the last thing he needs or wants.
No, the only one who gets it and proves is his fellow hostage Wendy who during their ordeal understands him and he loves her for it.It's a great film.
The Real Meaning- A Good/Bad Movie.
Quoting Chuck Palahniuk, "On a long enough time-line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." Our existence in our solar system, in our galaxy, in the universe is a spec of dust on a spec of dust on a spec of dust, hence SFW (nothing really matters).The black comedy and satire of this movie comes from the doting media and fans of Cliff Spab.
Cliff escapes it all, only to find himself being pushed further away from Wendy when he needs her most....Once you get past the fact that Dorff sounds uncannily like Christian Slater, you get another one of those films from the mid nineties that tried to define good old 'generation X'.
And for the most part, it works.Dorff is great as the guy who is having his fifteen minutes of fame, but cannot decipher why people are not mentioning his friend who was killed.
But this was a time when media only really dwelled on the good stuff, to sugar coat the public, to get more money behind their new 'celeb'The film doesn't know what genre it belongs to.
The hero in the movie is not a hero, that person, his best friend was killed on tape live for the whole world to watch.