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'Wild Things': Mischief of All Kinds
By Stephen Hunter
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 20, 1998
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Neve Campbell and Denise Richards star in "Wild Things."
(Columbia)
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Director:
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John McNaughton
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Cast:
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Kevin Bacon;
Matt Dillon;
Neve Campbell;
Theresa Russell;
Denise Richards;
Daphne Rubin-Vega;
Robert Wagner;
Bill Murray |
Running Time:
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1 hour, 46 minutes
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For sexual innuendo, violence, profanity and indecent interest in teenage girls
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The French call it nostalgie de la
boue, meaning nostalgia for the mud.
I call it the need to wallow. Now and
then, darn it, enough with world
peace, a cure for cancer and
compassion for the poor. I need
slime! I need scum! I need sleaze!
Did somebody say "Wild Things"?
This is a neo-noir along femme fatale lines, with a hint of child molestation
thrown in for spice. The femmes fatales are about 17. If you feel distinctly
uncomfortable when asked to respond sexually to teenagers, then this is
not the movie for you.
Matt Dillon plays a high school guidance counselor in steamy Florida (the
director, John McNaughton, has fun cutting away to suggestive images of
hungry gators). He's the most popular teacher at Blue Bay High, where
every female student has a body made for sin and a mouth made for
pouting and a look so come-hither no man could not go yon. The movie
makes you feel as if you've invaded some dirty old man's fantasies.
Unclean!
When one of these over-sexualized children – Denise Richards, of
"Starship Troopers" – accuses Dillon of rape, he's investigated by a dour
cop (Kevin Bacon), stripped of his job and put on trial. So quickly that
you know more twists will follow, that case falls apart, Dillon sues for libel
and is suddenly $8 million richer.
Well, I'll spare you a twist-by-twist synopsis to leave some room for
coverage of Washington, D.C., in today's newspaper. The movie is a
plot-o-rama, a revelation machine. Every damn thing turns out to be
something else, then that thing changes. Finally the twists come so fast they
leave you dizzy, and there're even six twists or so left over for the credits!
The movie is as tawdry as someone else's lingerie, yet not without a certain
prurient watchability. Though if any male high school teachers are caught in
the audience, I suggest instant exile to the U.S. Marine Corps. It's that kind
of movie.
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