200 Cigarettes Review
by Mark VerStandig (mbvs2 AT aol DOT com)March 15th, 1999
200 Cigarettes
Reviewed by Mac VerStandig
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Http://www.moviereviews.org
0 Stars (out of 4)
Ironically, one of the themes of 200 Cigarettes is that you should try to make the best of every moment in life. Unfortunately I will no longer be able to say that I lived every moment of my life to the fullest, because I spent 95 otherwise perfectly good minutes, watching this sad excuse for a movie. Actually smoking 200 cigarettes in the same 95 minutes couldn't be any worse for you than it is to watch the movie. Not only is it a pathetically bad film overall, but 200 Cigarettes actually has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The plot is scattered, thin and predictable; the acting is monumentally bad; and the style of film making resembles a home video.
It is December 31, 1981 and the big party is at Monica's (Martha Plimpton) house. But no one has arrived yet. Her 8 invited guests and several people that they have picked throughout the evening are wandering the streets of New York City in various groups. Some of them know each other through their common bond of having slept with Monica, and some are total strangers. But they all are to face their own personal neuroses before night's end.
Those who are invited are the ones that have the issues. It is up to those who aren't to help them come to terms. First there is Eric (Brian McCardie) who is a former boyfriend of Monica's and is just getting over the heartbreak of their relationship terminating prematurely because of his sexual performance, or lack thereof. He is one of the most bland characters, in a film full of dullness, because he is so utterly predictable and stereotypical, a common trait of this poor production.
Bridget (Nicole Parker) and Caitlyn (Angela Featherstone) who are both extremely sensuous young women looking for someone to handle their desires on New Year's Eve and tag along to the party with them. They stumble across a nameless bartender (Ben Affleck) who is the one truly perfect character in a film of imperfections. He is nether sexually deprived, nor uncertain about his future, as he is in law school. His lack of flaws is both boring, unrealistic and painful to watch. As Bridget and Caitlyn make passes at him you are neither entertained nor humored by the sub-standard comedy.
Moving on, there is Val (Christina Ricci) and Stephie, (Gabby Hoffman) 2 teenage girls with fake identification and very different thoughts. Val is Monica's cousin and a true fan of the New York scene. On the other hand, Stephie is convinced that she is vulnerable to crime when the two venture out of their usual locations in search of the party that they just can't find. Paradoxically, it is 2 punks that they meet at a bar (actually they attempt to flee from their presence, but aren't successful) who guide them through their fears and force a level of relaxation upon their warped minds.
Of all the insanely dull and uninteresting couples, only one approaches a level of decency in both acting and plot. Wisely, the movie's creators have put heavy emphasis on Lucy (Courtney Love) and Kevin (Paul Rudd) who are best friends and share the common bond of being dateless. Paul has just broken up with long time steady Ellie (Janeane Garofalo) and is starting to come to terms with his loss when Lucy informs him that Ellie had been sleeping around during their relationship. However, the only complexity to these two characters is that they seem to want to be more than friends, and that is reiterated when they attempt sexual intercourse in a bathroom stall on more than one occasion during this strange evening.
Finally, there are the two worst performances and worst sub-plot of the film. Jack (Jay Mohr) and Cindy (Kate Hudson) have been going out for a short period of time and Jack just learned that he took Cindy's virginity the night before. While she attempts to play this down and be her usual self, he is a predictably self loathing male as he attempts to deal with a string of one night stands that includes the recently deflowered Cindy.
Very often, when a film is as putrid as this production, there will at least be a decent quality of film making to reveal an occasional moment of glory. However, this film has neither the quality of cinematography nor the moments of glory to be highlighted. Instead, what you get is a collection of rough and inconsistent cuts, bad continuity and inaccuracies. First, and most noticeable is that as the film goes from one subplot to another, there is no apparent order that it follows, and it is also weekened by unnecessarily edgy edits from scene to scene and shot to shot. At other times, objects seem to get up and move and hairstyles and costumes change from shot to shot. There are also at least 4 scenes in a taxi cab that go from start to finish. Not in a single one of them does anybody pay the driver.
And yet, no matter how miserable this film may be, and no matter how poor the acting is all around, there was a ray of a hope for these many bad plots. Perhaps, if the makers had just decided to concentrate on one or two or, perhaps, even three, there might have been the time and opportunity for some character development, or quality acting, or even a decent plot payoff at the end. But it didn't happen that way. The cast of quality name actors was forced into roles that not even one of them could convert into a mediocre performance, and every story line crashed and burned quicker than it takes for the ball to drop at midnight.
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