Very great lm succeeds

"Very Bad Things" features a dead prostitute, a dead security guard, a dead minivan and various other dead entities all before it reaches the halfway mark. After the halfway mark? You guessed it, more dead stuff. And there are no ifs, ands or buts about the dead, presented in full gory glory.

Courtesy of Polygram Films Cameron Diaz stars as the overanxious bride in the dark comedy "Very Bad Things." The film opens today at theaters everywhere.

Kyle (Jon Favreau) is going to his bachelor party in Las Vegas with four of his best friends, brothers Adam (Daniel Stern) and Michael (Jeremy Piven), Moore (Leland Orser) and Boyd (Christian Slater). Kyle just wants to get through the night; his control-freak wife-to-be, Laura (Cameron Diaz) just wants him to remember to write the checks to the caterer and the wedding hall and the band and the florist and try not to screw anything up in her perfectly planned white wedding.

To say that Kyle screws up is an understatement, and this wedding turns out to be anything but white. The bachelor party takes place in a Las Vegas hotel suite and is a magnificently visualized masterpiece that sets the tone for "Very Bad Things." Real estate pit bull Boyd calls in his favorite stripper who for a little extra will go the distance to the bedroom. The night is filled with drinking, drugs and boys-will-be-boys scuffling as they administer a trashing to the suite that would make Axl Rose proud. Berg shoots partially in slow motion with close-ups and canted angles; pro wrestling plays in the background, the soundtrack pulses, and Michael disappears into the bathroom for a little one-on-one with the stripper.

Minutes later, the word "hooker" has taken on a whole new definition. Bathrooms are dangerous places. Before the boys can clean up the bloody mess, a hotel security guard shows up to investigate the ruckus. Boyd takes him out with a corkscrew and claims it was for the good of the group.

He then herds the whimpering, sobered crew to the local Kmart where they walk the aisles carrying mops as if they were sabers, buzz saws and hazard suits - a bunch of janitorial regulators on the job. Everything seems to be going OK as they turn the trashed suite pristine again. They pack up the body parts in a couple of suitcases and prepare to do some deep digging in the desert.

Use your imagination to figure out what happens next. Suffice it to say that the sick laughs start here and then just keep coming, an endless onslaught of bloodcurdling amusement that Berg revels in constructing. If you've seen his work on the production side of things in "Chicago Hope," you know what kind of madness to expect; if you haven't, prepare to either love or hate "Very Bad Things." It is a movie of extremes and is not for the faint of heart or weak of mind. Berg uses every trick in the book of bloody silence and cover-up and then invents a few more, each one more outrageous than the next.

Unfortunately, the movie suffers from its own penchant for gory excess. The bachelor party is so integral, so excessive yet perfect in every way that Berg spends the rest of the film trying to top his own handiwork, never pausing to accept what he has done early on as the epitome of his work. It might not have been the highlight of the movie if Berg had taken a step back and ended his one-upmanship before it got out of control. Nothing escapes Berg's rabid eye of wit - not hookers, not weddings, and not even handicapped kids who are "one crutch away from a telethon." "Very Bad Things" doesn't deserve the jokes its title invites, as it is actually a very, very good thing. But it could have been very great if only it had been a little more funny or a little less bloody. The good things, though, far outweigh the bad and mark Berg as a talent to watch in the future.

Favreau is effective as the cowed fiancée whose marriage plans are under serious duress. Piven is his usual wisecracking, entertaining self. Orser is pretty much a non-entity. Only Stern manages to cover new ground and reinvent himself as a raving, basically good man whose conscience is tested by the crime he is forced to hide. His character might fail that test, but Stern passes with flying colors. Slater is in top form reprising his "Heathers" role, borrowing a little from that movie and Joe Pesci in "Goodfellas" to paint the motivational tape mantra-spewing Boyd as a friend that nobody would really want to have in a pinch.

The true prize, other than Peter Berg's work behind the camera, is the performance given by Cameron Diaz. "Very Bad Things" is a study in how much stress one human can take, and the ultimate stress victim is the most unlikely one of all, the one character who had zilch to do with the original sin of the boys. Her so-light-they're-dark scenes are something to look forward to during those long, dark, bloody sequences filled with gristle and gore. She works the flip-side of her "My Best Friend's Wedding" persona and stops at nothing to get that perfect wedding. At times I wondered if perhaps she wasn't better suited to Boyd, but one of the film's many semi-climaxes nixes that idea. Either way, Diaz is excellent and deserves recognition.

"Very Bad Things" has a high body count and a carnage factor that would put Quentin Tarantino to shame. Some of it is shameless, some of it is funny, and by the time things are over it seems like more bodies have been moved than words said. But hey - what are friends for?

11-25-98