Can't Hardly Wait (4/10): A predictable teenage comedy

“Don't look back. You should never look back.”

There is a scene during the movie where someone spray painted “This Party Sucked” on the door, and I guess that the same thing can be said about this predictable and formulaic teen comedy that tries way too hard to capture the spirit of former John Hughes’ comedies from the 80’s. Perhaps it is my fault that I just got around watching this film now, but if that is the case all I can say is that it hasn’t aged well considering many films since have done a much better job at delivering laughs and breaking genre conventions. Can’t Hardly Wait is completely predictable from start to finish and the characters all fall flat despite some charismatic performances from the cast. The script may be the biggest disappointment because the characters aren’t given anything interesting to say and they all play generic characters. This was Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan’s first feature film as directors, and they only went on to direct one other movie together (Josie and the Pussycats). Can’t Hardly Wait was received quite well in the late 90’s, but I can’t see its appeal. It feels like a generic teen comedy about teenagers partying after graduation.  They all promise to be memorable, but in the end everything that goes on in the party is completely predictable. There are fun moments, but the film never justifies it 100 minute runtime. 

Jennifer Love Hewitt plays the girl everyone in school loves and admires, but she has recently been dumped by her boyfriend, played by Peter Facinelli, who wants to move on and meet college girls now. Their breakup is the talk of the school, and Ethan Embry’s Preston believes fate has given him another shot to talk to the girl of his dreams. Preston has always been in love with Amanda (Hewitt), but she doesn’t even know of his existence. We find out about his secret crush for Amanda through his best friend, Denise (Lauren Ambrose), who he confides in. Other people we meet at the party are the classic characters we’ve seen in many other 80’s and 90’s teen comedies: some of the hot shot athletes who are best friends with Mike (Facinelli), their gorgeous girlfriends who are part of Amanda’s group, the rockstar wannabes, and the nerds who want to avenge all the years of bullying they’ve endured. Charlie Korsmo gives one of the most funny performances as this nerd who after drinking a bit too much becomes the sensation of the party. There is also a side plot involving Denise getting locked up in the bathroom with Kenny Fisher (Seth Green), someone who she shared a past with but hasn’t been in contact since. Locked up together in the bathroom seems like a good way to dig up the past and they both open up with each other. The side stories and secondary characters are actually more interesting than the actual main plot involving Hewitt and Embry’s relationship and that is what ultimately hurt the film for me.  

How much are your values worth?

“Let’s keep this going. What do you want me to do next?”

As the title suggests, director E.L. Katz delivers some cheap thrills in this extremely dark comedy which begins as a standard down on his luck tale of a family man trying to survive through the recession after losing his job and receiving an eviction notice. The first half of the film (my favorite part) slowly builds up the tension while gradually getting darker as we approach the final act. There is a saying in my country which translated goes something like this: “For money, the monkey dances,” and that is what first time screen writer David Chirchirillo is exploring in this black comedy: to what extremes is someone willing to go for monetary gain. Are our values worth negotiating with in exchange for money? This theme is richly explored in Cheap Thrills through two characters (played by Pat Healy and Ethan Embry) who meet a rich married couple (Sara Paxton and David Koechner) in a bar and begin playing an innocent dare game. The couple offer them money in exchange for them doing a series of dares involving drinking a shot of tequila, punching the security guard in the face, and so on. Of course we all know that this is going to escalate quickly into something much darker as they begin paying the consequences for their action, and it does. Cheap Thrills has all the right ingredients to become a cult favorite for some audiences, but it just didn’t work that well for me as things began to get darker. 

What I appreciated the most about this film is that it plays out perfectly as sort of an allegory of our society’s obsession over reality TV shows in which we are offered an opportunity to get rich by simply competing against each other in a series of dares. It actually is spelled out during one scene where Fear Factor is mentioned and this is exactly what the film is trying to get at. As we are judging these characters for how inhumane the series of dares are turing into, it all of a sudden puts a mirror into our society’s obsession over reality TV shows similar to Fear Factor. I think that if the film would’ve come out some 7 years earlier it would’ve been more effective because those shows have become a bit outdated. It also shows how we are always competing with our friends to become more successful than the other, and the way we justify our actions even though we know our behavior was dubious. The film reminded me a lot of Saw where the rich couple take on the role of Jigsaw as they get a kick out of watching their victims compete for money (instead of their lives). The clever difference is that this time their victims voluntarily place themselves in this situation as victims of their circumstance and so the game begins. But then during the second act it slowly identifies more with darker and gory horror films such as Hostel which was where I began losing interest. 

The performances in this film are solid. At first I found David Koechner to be over the top, but everything begins to make sense as you stick with the premise. His wife, played by Sara Paxton makes for an interesting character despite not doing much. Just the way she is gazing at everyone with her beautiful eyes, it becomes obvious that she isn’t someone you can fully trust. Ethan Embry and Pat Healy are convincing as the out of luck old school buddies who bump into each other at a bar. The film focuses on establishing their relationship first and then it slowly progresses into portraying each other’s flaws. There aren’t any likable characters in this film, but they all deliver strong and engaging performances nonetheless. If you like you films dark and nasty then Cheap Thrills might just be your thing, but it just wasn’t for me despite appreciating some of the things it was saying about our society.