Behaving Badly (2014) Directed by Tim Garrick

Some movies are just bad because of some weak writing, terrible casting, lame comedy or incompetent directing. But then you also have some movies that are absolutely terrible ones because they are bad all across the board! Guess which category this one falls under?

Wow, this movie is absolutely terrible! It's so mindbogglingly bad that I'm still, one day later, scratching my head over it. I just don't understand what it was trying to do. Well, when thinking hard about it I guess I can still somewhat see what it was trying to be and do but that doesn't take away anything from the fact that it manages to achieve absolutely nothing and is a terribly ineffective movie, on absolutely every level.

It's trying to be an edgy as well as a bit of raunchy sex comedy but the problem is that the film-makers absolutely had no idea how to be both edgy and raunchy in a story-wise effective and comedic type of way. Instead the edgy and raunchy elements of the movie just feel plain wrong. It for instance uses people dying as comic relief (and not once but three times!) and it expect us to laugh at sexual relationships between teens and middle aged women. It all just feels very wrong, especially when considering that this movie feels and looks like a movie that's made for 14/15/16 year old teens, with its pacing, soundtrack, cast and overall way of storytelling. Seriously what are young teens supposed to take out of this movie? That it's OK and funny for middle aged women to take advantage of young, inexperienced, boys who can't say no yet, for their own sexual pleasure and that you can lie and cheat and hurt other people as much as you want and it will still get you the girl of your dreams. Everything that happens in this movie seems to be without any real consequences for any of the characters. You have to go to jail? Don't worry! Get a corrupt lawyer, crack a few jokes and you'll be out in no time. Got a STD? So what? No big deal! Everyone has got one, since everybody sleeps with everybody. Priests with mums, married men have threesomes with under-aged girls in dirty motel rooms...all in the name of comedy! Seriously, there are even some pedophilia references and 'jokes' in this movie, which is Absolutely nothing to laugh at. It's such a morally inept movie and just not ever in an edgy or funny king of way sadly. Who knows, maybe the creators of the American Pie movies still would have been able to turn this into an effective and funny to watch movie but Tim Garrick just clearly ain't no Paul Weitz or John Hughes.

Nothing wrong with some politically incorrect comedy, as long as it's funny! This movie is constantly cracking jokes and making fun of just about everything that comes on its path, or it just throws in some more random stuff that adds absolutely nothing to the story. It just isn't ever a very funny movie to watch! It's a really poorly executed movie, that showed some potential with its story and some of the themes but gets handled in an absolutely terrible and ineffective way.

Most of the time it doesn't even feels like the movie is following much of a story really. Just the one random and often also unrelated occurrence after the other. This really is a movie that could have used a more solid main plot line in it, instead of just a few random side-plots, that aren't developed very well or ever get wrapped up in a satisfying enough way.

It's a good thing that the cast still tries to play things very tongue-in-cheek. It's hard to blame the actors for anything, especially when seeing which actors are all involved with it. Qutie surprising really to see so many big name actors in a teen comedy but I guess that some actors just love to say yes to anything, as long as it's based off a semi-popular novel. It's definitely weird to watch some well known and respected actors such as Elisabeth Shue, Cary Elwes, Mary-Louise Parker and Heather Graham show up in such a poorly done teen comedy as this one. But again, the actors are at least still trying- and giving their very best to still let things play out as funny. The acting probably still is the only thing that doesn't disappoint or is weak about the movie, despite of some terrible dialog and dozens of ineffective scenes in it.

Terrible stuff. Don't even watch it out of morbid curiosity!

3/10

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