Customer Reviews

The Smokers

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

There is no true plot to this movie. It is genuinely meaningless. The movie centers around four girls who decide to teach men a lesson by assaulting them at gun point and rape them. Led by the sexual promiscuous member of the group, they set to first get "revenge" on one of the girl's boyfriends who just took her virginity. But here is where the movie comes undone. The guy did nothing wrong. He never raped or took advantage of the girl. She had what effectively amounts to buyer's remorse. Moreover, the promiscuous girl announces that their criminal actions were going to be done for "all women." With equal nebulous mindless indiscrimination, all men somehow become culpable for some baseless reason. The girls bumble their attempts, even somewhat humorously trying to arouse a young gay man. In the interim, the promiscuous leader, while having announced to her friends the worthlessness of the male race, goes out and pursues the worse examples of manhood, getting over her head with one married man, who brutally rapes her in front of his limo driver after throwing her over the hood of the car. The scenes erratically jumped from one to another with no smooth transitions or logical flow. Midway through the movie the original premise that the movie was based, namely punishing guys, disintegrates into a completely mindlessly undirected sequence of events. In one, the shrinking violet who just recently lost her virginity begins to have sex with another guy, but once again she decides she doesn't want sex with him and suddenly pulls out a gun and ends up shooting him to death. Perhaps this chick is just gay and doesn't know it or really is frightened by sex with men. But then again, why is she going with men and pursuing sex with them? The movie ends with the leader of the group burning to death in a comedy of unrealistic errors in trying to set off a fire alarm but inadvertently causes a real fire to rage through a school. That's it. That is the whole move. The whole, worthless, pointless movie. It makes no sense because there was no point to it. None of the female characters are coming across sympathetic. None were victims by anything other than their own stupidities. The leader of the group calls guys "mental midgets" but she ends up proving herself the smallest mental midget of all. The girls get themselves into their predicaments by mindlessly following an idiot and never once thinking or rationally analyzing the reality and truth of their lives in any honestly introspective way. Unlike the girls in the movie Foxfire, who are actually victimized and get revenge on their victimizer, you don't feel any sympathy for these mindless, witless wonders. The movie has no plot, the acting is awful, the editing is even worse, and the dialogue is horrifically unimaginative. The movie as a whole lacks any substance or purpose and never tells any kind of story. This therefore is NOT a movie but cinematographic masturbation.

Easily becoming a candidate for THE cult film of 2001, "The Smokers" will shock you; not because it is off-beat, odd, unconventional, or even outlandish, but because it is simply awful. And fans of Thora Birch, please listen.

The story is about three girls (its leader, Dominique Swain in "Face Off" and the newer "Lolita") living in a dorm at a school somewhere in country of America, and feeling dissatisfied with their life, they decide to do something radical: so radical that I couldn't believe what I saw. They are sort of intimidated by boys (so they think), who always get what they want in their love and sex with girls, so, the three start their own revolution. Of course, things get out of control, and before they knew it, troubles ensue.

Intersting? Only on paper. The result is a mess. It is shot without wit, humor, or sarcasm to sustain an entire film; all boys are hunks who think about nothing but having sex with girls (except an obligatory geek who wears glasses). Dialogues are impossible (one character talks about California as a place where they have "giant mosquitos"... so what?) and irrelevant, but the most depressing thing is its too ridiculous development of story. For example, see those girls, as a revenge to a boy, try to rape him, sticking a gun to his head (on a heap of corn). Reasons? As far as I know, it's because he ditched one of the girls rather unceremonious way. Or watch another girl shoot a gun in a boy's head because he gets too excited during sex at a prom night. What happens next? Nothing. No police. As if nothing happened. Because nobody believed her story!!

I know words such as sub-text or irony, but I don't think I can find them here. It is because all things are done most bland way, and you just see the girls swear, cry, complain, and even kill (and in one scene, one of them utters a line that is very offensive after her knowing her prospective love turned out to be a gay), but nothing can be accounted for in a reasonable way. Because of setting of three girls in school, you might be reminded of "Heathers" but at least that film had a certain kind of power and wry humor, thanks to Christian Slater and Wynona Rider. But here ... don't ask me. And editing is bad so sometimes I had a trouble to follow the story. (Believe me or not, I watched it twice.)

Finally, about the appearance of my favorite actress Thora Birch. She appears twice as a sister of one of the girls, but too briefly, so fans don't say I didn't warn you. And both times she wears a strange paint make-up on the face, so I first could not recognize her. I like her, I like "Ghost World" (great!), but I couldn't find anything good for her career here. Sorry.

From the reviews, this definitely sounded like something I wanted to see. Girls taking back what's rightfully theirs from deceitful arrogant men who use women for sex. But I watched this twice and still couldn't figure out the plot. Interesting idea, but it was never developed. The girls are still weak and break down for men. The fire at the end didn't even fit with the rest of the movie and the ending was incredibly inconclusive. I felt empty and used after this movie, just like the female characters in them. It made no sense and had no substance.

A movie about 17-year-old girls and sex - without nude scenes? (This is not typical Hollywood.) A portrait of three misguided girls poisoned by the malaise of life at an idyllic, midwest boarding school succumb to the polictically correct ideals of contemporary US culture, and declare themselves to be no longer victims of men. They make a pact and begin a revolution to avenge all women, and regain the personal power robbed from them. So starts their campaign of rape against the male student body. However, this is no feminist film. Even armed with a handgun, the girls find themselves unable to take the power they crave away from the boys.

This is a powerful and introspective film about what it means to declare oneself a victim, or even to declare oneself a victim no more. The Smokers raises serious questions about our actions and responsibilities, and leaves the viewer struggling to find the answers.

However, be forewarned! While this film is novel and the ideas it explores are worthwhile, the execution is crass and lacks good acting, or perhaps good direction. I can't say which for sure! Perhaps universally poor acting is a sign of poor direction, or poor script writing? But since the writer and director are the same person, Kat Slater, let's just agree to blame her for all that is lacking in this film! If you can do that, and get past its crass and campy nature, then this film will give you something *real* to think about.

Bad acting, bad camera work, bad script, bad plot. Bad everything. My sister rented this movie because she wanted to see girls kicking guy's butts. Instead, it was so bad we all had a good laugh over it.

The plot isn't in the least bit inspiring or powerful. Supposedly it's about girls taking back power from guys, when in fact they don't seem to have anything to gripe about. Two of them are virgins with no apparent reason to need to get back at guys. The one who isn't a virgin went out and did some older, rich, married jerk in his limo, then wonders why he wouldn't give her his number? Is this a good reason to feel "used" by the male sex? The rest of the movie is supposed to center around this, but this quickly gets pushed aside so that other minor and unimportant underlying plots can be developed. The typical nerd boy=nice boyfriend plot is overplayed. The butt kicking consists of one hilariously unbelievable rape scene before being pushed aside.

Most of this movie was just not believable. From the rape of a guy (did they give him viagra or something?) to the twisted Russian Roulette scene. Like these girls would really do that? Come on.

It gets worse.

Even after feeling "used" by the married rich guy, the girl meets with him again. He rushes things and she (finally) decides she wants to get out of the situation. She screams for help, but the limo guy does nothing. She falls out of the limo, only to be raped on the hood of the limo, in front of the driver, in the middle of the street. Despite the fact that a rape scene should be powerful and have some kind of effect on the story, nothing comes of it.

The wussy girl in the group sneaks off to have sex with some guy, then decides she doesn't like it and tells him to stop and hits him with her gun. That only turns him on (because what do you know... these guys like bondage!) and she shoots him in the neck, killing him instantly. She runs and hides the gun in their dorm, only to confess anyway. But no one believes her except one woman, and no one believes this woman either. So instead of the girl being caught, she is put on drugs. What?

Then there is the fire scene. For some reason one of the girls decides to set off the smoke alarm. It's not mentioned why. One minute the girls are being interviewed one by one about the murder, the next they are setting off smoke alarms? But then she magically falls or something, sets a shower curtain on fire, and gets her dress stuck in something you never see. Instead of ripping it or taking the dress off to escape from the unnaturally quickly growing fire, her friend comes and saves her (also not shown how) only to be trapped when a flaming piece of the roof falls on her. She can't get out and burns to death. What? Not only that, but the firemen let the escaped girl's nerd boyfriend come in to the burning building with them? The firemen don't even rush to save this girl. Although honestly, I wouldn't save her either. Now we're supposed to be sad the girl died. Instead, you are left wondering what this has to do with anything. Normally, tragic deaths in movies have something to do with the plot or meaning of the story. Her death was played up as if it put a some kind of closure or moral on the movie. Instead you just wonder where the plot went.

And in the end, the wussy girl marries unhappily and the other marries the nerd right after graduation. Way to be independent, gals.

This movie doesn't even live up to a teen angst story. It completely misses the mark with whatever point it attempted to make. Don't bother.

I can't believe everyone is so critical against this movie. It could be an age difference. First of all, Dominique Swain is one of the most talented yet unnoticed actress. Thora Birch had a small part which was cute and funny.
And what high school movie do guys not want to have sex? It would be weird if they didn't. Sure what the girls planned was outrageous and not meant to be literally done but it brings up a very good point of how guys get away with saying and doing anything to girls and we're supposed to sit back and watch it happen. I found this movie to be good, funny and refreshingly different than most high school movies. If someone who hasn't seen the movie is reading this, it's definitely worth it..some of the drama parts will shock you...but the funny shocking parts will make you think and wonder what parts of life you're missing.

The Smokers is one of my favorite movies of late.At first I picked it up because I am a fan of Dominique Swain{If you enjoy her I believe this is one her best roles}but after watching it I found that Thora Birch was also great in the few parts she was in. Busy Phillips and Kerri Lynn Pratt were ok but they have played better roles. To everyone who says the personality of the girls and their style is unrealistic, try going to a big city. Many girls act like them.I think teenagers will enjoy this film more. Those of you who keep mentioning that they "smoke too much" are probably too old to get the movie. The Smokers deals with issues such as gun use and rape from a girls point of view. For once instead of acting all scared, pouty, and why me ish like in every other movie, the girls decide to fight back. Though the self defense is taken too far with a gun I believe it is only a representation of the hate and vengeance some women feel after being raped. This movie also ties into the high school issues of friendship and peer pressure. the three girls are very different and come from different backrounds but have similar feelings in that they do not want to be weak women any more. I real enjoyed this movie and think that its a great watch for teenage girls.

As a grad of a residential high school, this movie was exagerated in every way, but I still connected with it emotionally. No one I went to school with was that wealthy or had quite that much freedom on campus, but the craziness was definately there. This movie takes the actual experience of residential high school cliques, sex, drugs, violence and exagerates it, but IMHO doesn't distort it. My husband didn't like it though.

The first time I watched the DVD of this film, I felt confused by the plot, production values and general sense of having taken a chance on something which didn't make the grade. The second time, however, I noticed that there is continuity and beleivabilty and these seemingly frustrated young women are really not that much unlike a lot of people, young and old, who attempt to take a pro-actve approach to their problems. I have now consigned this film to the group to which I will periodically refer when in the appropriate mood and am glad that I took a chance on this one after all.

So these three girls are outcasts, because they smoke but mostly because they are infantile. There's Karen (Freaks & Geek's/Dawson's Creek's Busy Phillips), a scholarship girl who is as irritating but not quite as sexy as Shelley Winters in "The Poseidon Adventure", and Lisa (Keri Lynn Pratt who was Miss New Hampshire a couple years earlier), and Jefferson (Ms. Swain-everyone's favorite "Lolita"). So guess who the writer/director uses for her most erotic shots? That's right Phillips the screaming buffalo. And they wonder why these things lose money.

My guess is a no-talent and soon to be pornmaker woman happened to see a 1968 movie called "Three In the Attic" (which has never been released on video) and thought that she could get away with stealing the story. So she began to remake the film without buying the rights or acknowledging that it was a remake. Her boyfriend, who financed it so he could co-star and drool on "Lolita", panicked and ordered her to make last minute script changes to avoid a lawsuit. At least this would account for the totally nonsensical storyline.

One easy and generally reliable way to avoid dogmeat stuff like this is to check out the industry experience of whoever is credited with art direction and production design. If it is their first credit you know the picture will be horrible.

Watch this only if you are absolutely determined to see everything Thora Birch has done. She made this between "American Beauty" (before its release) and "Ghost World". Although I am sure that she would like it off her resume she actually does a good job in a small role. You recognize her voice more than her face and it takes a while because you are struggling internally with disbelief, like if Emma Thompson had made an appearance in "The New Guy".

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.