"Whipped" may not be the worst movie of all time, but it is easily the worst movie of the year.
Considering the slew of mediocre-to-terrible films that have been released within the past year, it comes as no surprise that a film reliant on the tried-and-true hetero teen sex theme should prove Oscar worthy, or Golden Globe worthy, or even worthy of a Cavalier Daily review. This is the first movie I've ever seen where the word "plot" fits in solely onomatopoetically.
On the more positive side, "Whipped" does, however, impressively manage to be consistently bad; its soundtrack, costumes and editing are horrendous. But the area where the film most excels in incompetence is its writing. The immature script appears to have been written by a rich, homophobic teenager from Beverly Hills who hides behind the pseudonym of Peter M. Cohen. Peter M. ("M" for misogynist) shoots for the aggressive style of the Coen brothers, but they don't have his "h" and he doesn't have their talent. This isn't sophomoric work; this isn't even freshmanic work; this is 8th-grade creative writing.
The film's constant cursing is useless and infantile, not to mention annoying. David Mamet knows how to use an f-word, where to place it for full effect. Peter M. Cohen is no David Mamet. He's not even Ed Wood. He's a cinematic lowbrow Aaron Spelling.
The sad fact is that "Whipped" looks like a big budget movie. It has that expensive Martin Scorcese gloss that spells big bucks. This makes one wonder: with the broad talent pool of L.A. and New York, plus the financial backing to boot, how can something this vacuous possibly exist? This is the shame that is Hollywood, and it's why Ebert is so quick to give the thumbs up to anything foreign, daring and/or indie.
If there is a small redeeming quality, it is the hope that Amanda Peet may have a breakthrough role in some future project, but in this movie she plays a one-dimensional character whose sympathetic qualities are completely destroyed in her closing monologue. My only question to Amanda is this: Why did she decide to take this role in the first place? She's already been in another version of the movie called "Body Shots" filmed in 1999, but with a better script and better actors.
"Whipped" forces us to sit through the inept Judah Domke's stomach-churning portrayal of "Eric, the married friend," which is coincidentally my nomination for the worst acting I have ever seen, ever, in my entire life, ever, including community theater.
Throughout the film, we were in constant debate if we should stay for the ending, using the pro-"staying" philosophy of "it has to get better." It doesn't. It only gets worse. Some sort of story attempts to unfold about three male losers getting screwed over by a female loser, but the real losers will be this film's financial backers, which happen, coincidentally, to be the film's actors. Who knew?
Perhaps the greatest insult is the director's blatant theft from other, better films such as "Trainspotting," "When Harry Met Sally," "In the Company of Men," "Swingers" and "There's Something About Mary" as well as the confessionals of "The Real World." Upon leaving this movie, there was a general consensus that two hours of our lives had just been wasted, and that's probably the saddest statement someone can make about a film.
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