CECIL B. DEMENTED (director/writer: John Waters; cinematographer: Robert Stevens; editor: Jeffrey Wolf; cast: Melanie Griffith (Honey Whitlock), Stephen Dorff (Cecil B. DeMented), Alicia Witt (Cherish), Adrian Grenier (Lyle), Larry Gilliard Jr. (Lewis), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Raven), Jack Noseworthy (Rodney), Patty Hearst (Fidget's mother), Eric M. Barry (Fidget), Riki Lake (Libby), Mink Stole (Mallory), Kevin Nealon (himself); Runtime: 87; Artisan Entertainment; 2000)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
What can you say about this set in Baltimore film, by the king of bad taste, John Waters, except it is what can be expected from the director whose type of rebellious childish low-budget indie films have now become passe since his peak days of the 1970s, when he made "Pink Flamingos." Now his satire has become more tame than outrageous. It is ironic that the director made a film railing about the poor quality of a Hollywood film and has made a film that is equally as bad, if not worst. This is a shoddy production, the comedy is lame, the acting almost non-existent, and the satire is sophomoric, taking pop shots at an easy target such as Hollywood, but shots that have no sting. If I laughed more, then I could have found some justification for the film. At best, this "Demented" could be seen as a TV sketch on "Saturday Night Live," or a straight to video movie release. As a full-length feature, it ran out of gas shortly after the initial kidnapping scene and went quickly downhill due to a lack of subtlety and the film's inability to be challenging or get at what is really troubling about pop culture. It certainly can't be because the theaters still make popcorn in cocoanut oil and people who go to theaters in the mall talk during the film.
The story revolves around the title character, Cecil B. Demented (Dorff), the tyrannical and publicity seeking tousled-hair leader of a guerrilla troupe of cinema terrorists and his crew of revolutionary filmmakers, known as Sprocket Holes, who kidnap pampered superstar Hollywood actress Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith) at the Baltimore premiere of her latest movie and force her to star in their own guerrilla production, a film to be made in "ultimate reality." They bring her to their headquarters, an abandoned theater in a garage decked out in crass psychedelia. Demented rants that he is quite willing to die for art and will do anything to make his film.
The movie invades recent history to play on the real story of Patty Hearst as the victim of a political kidnapping who during her ordeal appeared to be brain-washed into accepting her captors' cause, which becomes the theme for the film. Patty has a small part as the concerned mother of one of the guerilla crew members.
The kidnapping of Honey at gunpoint and her transition from reluctance to act in their film after the guerillas take the movie house -- when the guerillas are shouting, `Power to the people who punish bad cinema,' while she is crying out, "Call Jack Valenti!" -- to her enthusiasm about changing her image and acting in their film, made for some of the most amusing scenes in the film. The kidnapping scene had some energy in it before even that became tiresome.
There was some gentle digs at Hollywood: from poking fun at a Pauly Shore film marathon to the mall showing only "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" films to the set of the expensive remake of "Forrest Gump" being taken over by the guerillas to `Les enfants du paradis' panned for being insultingly dubbed in English to mocking the Maryland Film Commission to the "Patch Adams" film showing of a director's cut in the mall. These were easy targets and the comedy wasn't that funny or radical. It might have been funny on paper but when acted out, it seemed to be mild stuff, things even mainstream films do in a more daring way these days.
Melanie before her conversion to the cause of indie films, is seen acting mean-spirited to her long-time assistant (Riki Lake). She asks her to get the hotel manager to tell if Pat Nixon screwed in the Presidential Suite when staying at the hotel and she also refuses to go to her premiere in a white limo, requesting only a black one.
Melanie is pleased to learn that she has become very popular doing her new role as a cult movie heroine, revitalizing her dying career. Her new image starts with her satanic makeup, as applied by satan-lover Raven (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Her co-star is a druggie comically taking any kind of drug, Lyle (Adrian Grenier), who is supposedly a parody of a Method actor. Everyone in the film is bursting at the seams thinking about sex, but Cecil has outlawed sex until the movie is completed, so they all live by being sexually frustrated and some are even confused about what kind of sexuality fits them. Former porno star Cherish (Alicia Witt), whose film `Rear Entry,' is playing in an all-Anal film marathon, in which she co-stars with a gerbil, is now asking for legitimate acceptance in her role in this indie, while Jack Noseworthy as a hairdresser, ashamed of his heterosexuality, is asking for forgiveness for being straight.
There's not much to prove by the kidnapping, as the story is really irrelevant. The thing here is if the character can shock you and if the film hit your funny bone. For me, it came up close to empty in all respects. I'll take my deranged films from Andy Warhol anytime, whose freaks are really freaky and whose stories have more of an edge to them. Here, Dorff is good enough as the Abby Hoffman characterization of a punk who has gone completely mental as a deranged artist, while Griffith is a good sport, taking in all the remarks about Honey's age, her ego-centredness, her tantrums, her phony public demeanor and her defense of the kind of film she made a reputation on as a Hollywood star, first defending and then renouncing it. But I wouldn't call her performance acting, as she was mainly around to play a prop of herself to be used as a source for the comedy. The satire was not tough enough to make this a biting film, but rather one that has no claws to scratch and no gumption to really antagonize anyone but the Christian right-wing moralists. And since it can still at least do that, no matter how trivial this film is, I guess, the film has a little fire in its belly... . By the way, Water's stated in an interview that the film got its title "Cecil B. Demented," because that's what he was called in an early review.
REVIEWED ON 11/19/2000 GRADE: C
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews