Blyss's Movie Review for:
Main Cast of Characters:
James Marsden...........Derrick Webb
Norman Reedus.........Travis
Lena Headey...........Cathy Jones
Kate Hudson.........Naomi Preston
Joshua Jackson..........Beau Edson
Eric Bogosian...............Professor Goodwin
Edward James Olmos...............Detective Curtis
Sharon Lawrence...............Detective Kelly
Stephanie Mills...............Rebecca Lewis
2000. Rated: R. Genre: Thriller/Drama; 90 minutes
"It's just words, how bad can it be?"
That was Derrick Webb's comment for everything that related to Gossip. He always thought it was fun until a piece of gossip that he and his three roommates started became something horrifying for them. Kathy Jones, Travis, and Derrick Webb all are roommates. Jones, as Kathy goes by, is the studious one. Travis is the artistic one and Derrick is just a womanizer. Derrick is constantly telling gossip as fun in bars and other places to make himself or others seem bigger than what they really are. They go to their media class and decide to do a project centered around a piece of gossip that Derek made up about school beauty Naomi Preston and super hunk Beau Edson. Derek saw them together at a party they all were at and says that Naomi was drunk and pushing Beau away and Beau left her alone. However, he says that they could tell the rumor that Beau slept with her anyway after she passed out. Jones felt as if she had been duped by Naomi at the party and agrees thinking that she is only a rich brat anyway. Travis agrees with them and they start spreading it around. The rumors twist and turn and makes everyone look guilty, even the innocent. Beau gets accused of raping Naomi even when he really did not. But who is the trick really getting played on? Is it as horrible as it seems?
I really liked this movie because of the twists and turns that it took. I did however have a problem with the ending. It seemed the writer tried to tie it up in a neat little bow but I am wondering when they had time to plan this type of thing and when did the certain characters have time to talk about it? How were certain ones in on it and others weren't? What was real about what we were seeing and what was staged? That part really bothered me and confused me a little as a viewer. I have seen this movie several times and I still have not figured it out.
The humor that begins the movie with the telling of gossip was great. My favorite part was at the very beginning of the movie before everything got totally weird. The three of them, Jones, Travis, and Derek were all in the bar having a great time. Travis strikes out with a girl he flirted with and the bartender makes fun of him. Derek gets mad and then goes onto suggest to the bartender that Travis is the son of a famous rock star and before they know it, the three of them have free drinks and the audience is asking Travis to sing. They leave before it gets much weirder and the next day, that same girl that would not give Travis the time of day before spoke to him directly when she saw him on campus. I absolutely loved that part!
I had two favorite characters in this film. Travis and Naomi. Travis was the creative artist which I can totally identify with. He seemed to always be on the outer edges of every group he is with and many people reading this can probably identify with that also. He was the typical guy without making him sound so fictional like so many movies do. Plus I guess the fact that Norman Reedus portrayed him helped a lot! I really liked Naomi because she was everything that everyone thought that she was not. She seemed to be timid and somewhat of an ugly person on the inside. But when everything came out in the end, she was not that at all. She got her justice for the things that she had to go through with certain people in the film so I felt her role in everything was justified.
Overall, I give this film an 8
Blyss