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The Smokers

The Smokers

List Price: $9.94
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: deserves less than one star
Review: How did this movie even get made? I don't understand why I let myself waste one and a half hours to watch it. [In my opinion] the story was totally undeveloped. The dialogue was lame and boring beyond belief. The acting was laughable. And even technically the movie seemed badly made, not that I know a lot about making movies but in some shots its hard to see whats even going on. Its like the camera operator had a hard time keeping the camera on the action, it sort of drifts away from whats going on. And at least one long close-up shot goes in and out of focus. Some of the sound is hard to understand, like what they're saying.

Anyway, this is just a waste of time for everyone. Even a cult movie needs something good to recommend it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Lolita, What Happened?!
Review: I didn't have high expectations for this Teeny Bopper Flick...but Come On! Pretty Girls, Cute Outfits, [weak] PLOT, [weak] SCRIPT,[weak] ACTING!!!
I'm hoping that Dominique Swan will start picking better scripts/roles for herself...she did so well in Lolita. Was it just beginner's luck? =^..^=

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Quite possibly the worst film I have ever seen in my life
Review: I don't know what we were thinking (my friends and I, that is). We were bored, we were tired and we all had work the next day, so we figured we'd have a quiet night in of beer and videos. So we go down to the shop and one of us (not me, by the way) notices this film. We agreed it looked at least half-decent, so we rented it. What we saw was the most boring, ridiculous excuse for a thriller I'd ever seen in my life.

OK, so the story goes like this: a group of alleged (and not very believable) misfit teenage weed-smoking girls are sick and tired of their unfulfilling sex lives. So rather than just stop going for the biggest bunch of selfish @sshole blokes and look elsewhere for love like any sensible person, they decide to scare the existing men in their lives with guns. Well, a gun that they share between them. The act of these girls pulling down, tieing up and pointing a gun in the face of a bloke twice their size is somehow a 'revolution'.

The film is rediculously amatuerish. Firstly, there are some very unrealistic scenes. A cigarette lighter brushing against a shower curtain for a second (if that) is somehow supposed to start a fire in a bathroom (which like most bathrooms, has tiles on the wall). The rape scene seemed to show little struggling from the girl involved. Surely this part was supposed to be disturbing? If anything, it made me laugh at how atrociously done it was. And how exactly is a woman supposed to rape a bloke? Being hit over the head and then blinded, gagged and tied up would not turn me on in the slightest. Maybe these girls were just too stoned during their sex education lessons.

Secondly, the directing itself is awful. The actors clearly haven't been told exactly what to do in some of the more complex scenes. Without meaning to beat the same old drum, the two rape scenes (one of the girl, one of the guy) showed little co-ordination between the actors. When the guy is being ambushed, he had plenty of chances to fight off or run away. It shouldn't have looked like that.

My biggest gripe was sexist nature of the film. Surely if a film was made enforcing every stereotype of women in existence women would throw their arms in the air in disbelief? Are women in general in a rush to get married and have kids? Good in the kitchen? Care only about money and fast cars? If so, then the idea that men are all chauvinistic, sex-obsessed selfish morons is entirely beleivable. Also notice that the only nice guy in the film was the boring, pseudo-sensitive nerd. I suppose you could say that realism is far from this film's strongest point. Also, this isn't feministic either. Last time I checked, feminism was about equality, not infantile revenge.

This is without doubt one of the dullest most poorly made films I have ever seen. Poorly directed, poorly acted, poor cinematography, poor plot. I can't think of anything about this film that would make me recommend it anyone. If you really want to see a violent, sex-filled story of women killing men, then Baise-Moi is (marginally) better than this.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Shocking but makes you think.
Review: I got to see The Smokers at the New York Independent Film Festival last year and let me tell you, that film kept me thinking for weeks afterwards. I was finally able to get a copy... since the US version was not out yet. The first time I saw it was with my boyfriend, and he just could not relate to the film (perhaps the disturbing subject matter was a little too much for him). It is truly a "chic flick". But I have since passed the film around to all my girlfriends and we all unianimously agree that the filmmakers are definitely making a clear statement. BOYS BEWARE!!!

Definitely a Cult Classic with a message that must be seen to understand.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Dubbed dialogue alert!
Review: I have a thing against movies with narration. I feel oftentimes that narration is a crutch, a sign that the filmmakers lack the creativity necessary to form a real story through actual filmmaking. There is some lousy narration in this movie, so don't say I didn't warn you.

The story centers around three characters: the narrator and star is Dominique Swain, who was so promising in the Lyne remake of "Lolita" but has since washed herself down a spiral of lousy showcases for her talent by selecting material that has straight-to-video written all over it ("Intern," "Girl," and now this.) Sure, she's wiry and watchable with her small, expressive face and pleasant, articulate voice. She and her talented co-stars (Busy Phillips, throaty and voluptuous, and Kari Lynn Pratt, a baby in both face and voice) are given little to work with in a script that is both contrived, lopsided, unintelligent, and unfunny. The three attend a private prep school in Wisconsin where they are known as "The Smokers" because they "smoke it to the butt." They cavort around in gaudy designer clothes and masquerade facepaint, setting off fire alarms and hitting local bars. The plot, if you could call it that, begins when the girls spend a night in Chicago and Ms. Phillips, the most promiscuous of the three, is offered a ride home in a limo from a sleazy professional. In the morning, the chaffeur stands a few feet away from the bouncing limo sucking a blowpop, and we cut inside to Ms. Phillips looking pained and embarrassed as she thrusts on top of the lecherous Mr. Rich. Post-coitus, "The Limo Guy" tells Ms. Phillips that she can't call him because his wife "wouldn't take too kindly to strangers calling."

Spiteful and bent on revenge, Ms. Phillips decides that she and her two pals should use Ms. Swain's gun to frighten and use boys, just like the boys use them. Wait, hold up. Didn't Ms. Phillips VOLUNTARILY go with that older man? Was she too stupid to realize that as someone much older, wealthier, and more powerful, he was in a position to hmmm, take advantage of her? The entire message of the movie rests within this flawed point! The three female leads plot to hold boys at gunpoint and rape them, to show them "what it's like" to be used. But Ms. Phillips let herself get used! She picked up a sleazoid in a bar! What was she expecting? The entire "feminist" message of the movie is misconstrued because this set-up is simply wrong! Doesn't she realize that to empower herself, she should simply NOT sleep with jerks? No, but she's still going to do something about it.

Here's the "something": the three girls hold a boy (Oliver Hudson, brother of Kate Hudson) at gunpoint in a cornfield while wearing ridiculous John Waters-y get-ups and try to rape him. But hold on here! There are boys that LIKE this sort of thing... so the girls become somewhat of a campus-wide curiosity piece. Or do they? This is never really developed until the end, when it is brought back at such a strange time that all we can do is laugh incredulously.

The filmmakers choose to instead develop a banal subplot between Ms. Swain and a geeky kid (Nicholas Loeb, who also produced) who isn't all about sex. Snore. By the time Ms. Swain tries her hand at the whole "gun thing" and embarrasses herself with a potential lover, she is ready to be "out" of the whole plan. Wait, what plan? They attacked one guy! This was possibly the most forced and unbelievable scene I have watched in recent memory.

The movie ends in an unclimactic climax that was edited so poorly, I had to watch the movie again just to realize what had transpired. In fact, much of the movie is terrible on a filmmaking level. The audio is horrible, much of the dialogue is dubbed in postproduction quite unprofessionally (check out the scene where Ms. Swain jogs next to Mr. Loeb... holy moly!), and the editing is sometimes so jarring that you have to rewind to figure out what just happened (look for a shot where Ms. Phillips falls out of a car and bam, she's already on the other side with the car pulling away!)The cinematography is also quite uninspired, and sometimes verges on incompetent (Thora Birch, who makes a strange cameo as Ms. Swain's potsmoking little sister, is nearly cut out of the frame in a sequence where she recites marijuana poetry.)

The film is not without merit, however. I liked the clothes. And a scene where Ms. Pratt shoos her unresponsive boyfriend from her bedroom is the only part of the movie with the least bit of poignance, revealing what possibly could have been if the story had been reworked with an able production team. Some of the music was fun, and the girls are definitely nice to look at, all dolled up and wearing Betsey Johnson and BCBG.

This movie is worth seeing only to appreciate the amount of work that goes into making other movies merely watchable on a production level. Listening to the sound quality of this movie and subjecting yourself to the digital-video transfer film quality will leave you howling for some real professionalism. A sidenote: Why are Ms. Swain and Ms. Birch named "Jefferson" and "Lincoln?" And is a line where Ms. Swain, trying to recognize her wealthy and consistently absent mother, says "I recognize the jewelry but I'm having a little trouble with the face," serious or ironic? I was praying for the latter but I feared that it was the former, given its context in a stream of stupid dialogue that flowed throughout the entire film.

All in all, recommended for prospective filmmakers studying how NOT to make their films. Should be shunned by everyone else.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Just plain bad
Review: I have to say that even though these things may happen; this movie failed to present it in a light that made it even a little interesting. The characters were poorly developed. You never really began to relate to any of them. The cinematography was probably the worst I've ever seen. You could actually see where film was overlaid in the fire scene. What was said didn't match to what you just watched. The fire started in the bathroom but you see it engulfing the bedroom; although according to narration only the bathroom was affected! Huh!! Even if you could make some sense out of that whole scene, why bother. This movie was a complete waste of film. For a DVD the video was terrible; the soundtrack was even worse. Give your money to a beggar! You'll get more satisfaction and didn't waste 90 minutes of your life!!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Put This "Out" Before You Get Burned.
Review: I just popped this film out of my VCR and gave up watching it. I thought it would be more entertaining to visit amazon and write about it instead. ............. Dominique Swain and an unrecognizable since "American Beauty" Thora Birch play 2 out of a unmemorable group of schoolgirls who smoke too much and try to be "cool". They take it a step further by raping male student/aquaintances at gunpoint to prove they are powerful. Every scene is filled with people smoking something, and not always tobacco. That pretty much sums it up as far as plot goes, but then again, the title sums up the plot just as well. ............... This film comes off as an independent cheapie production. Bad direction, cinematography ect. It isn't innovative, artsy, or interesting in the least. I even gave it nearly an hour before ejection time. Most of the time if the film hasn't grabbed me by 30 minutes, that's it. ................. A film glamorizing SMOKING? What year is it? Didn't smoking go out of style decades ago? With the exception of bars and clubs, aren't people excluded in public places where this habit has been shunned and restricted for quite awhile? I just DON'T see any point in producing a pretentious and vapid movie basing it's non-plot on supposedly cool girls smoking heavily, being used for casual sex, and then raping guys for revenge and control. This film is a real boon to tobacco companies trying to get young impressionable kids trying to be "cool", hooked to ensure their own financial futures. It's enough to make C. Everett fly the COOP! ............. When it comes to viewing "The Smokers", I say QUIT before you start.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Point Missed?
Review: I loved this movie, and i recommend it for anyone who has ever felt used, hurt, betrayed or controlled by the opposite sex.

I have heard many opinions about The Smokers. Some were positive many were negative. Somehow I think the point of this movie and it's plot have been missed. Number these girls are supposed to be teenagers (young and inexperienced) how could anyone take offense to they're standing as feminists. They were desperate girls not female freedom fighters.
Then the misinterpretation that these girls were just wanting sex from the guys is very very wrong. Number one rapes (committed by anyone) are not just about sex. They are need for control over another person. All these girls were trying to do was let the male sex know how they felt being used and thrown away. I suggest all of you watch the movie again, this time with an opened mind. Thankyou!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I <3'ed this movie
Review: I loved this movie... I purchased it not ever hearing of the movie... I enjoyed its brutal honesty and good character development... overall a wonderful movie

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: I watched this movie the other night and it was so twisted, it's about these girls who go to private school and live on campus. They decide to take revenge on many guys that they have previously had realationships with so they can prove to them what it is like to be raped. Then in the end there plan turns into a big mess that they must crawl out of.


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