Reel Critics

Allen MacDonald

“The Sweetest Thing” is so terrible I feel like it would be bad karma

to waste too much space reviewing it. I wanted to write an articulate,

incisive sentence that would intelligently convey the depth of my

distaste for this film: It’s really lame. Lame. Lame. Lame.

This film has stolen an hour and a half of my life. I want that time

back.

The plot revolves around a shallow, vapid young woman (Cameron Diaz),

and her shallow, vapid friends (Christina Applegate, Selma Blair), who

have made a career out of toying with men; chewing them up and spitting

them back out. Diaz meets Mr. Right (Thomas Jane) at a club, he figures

out her mind games in 10 seconds and tells her so. Diaz falls for him,

but is too nervous to call him the next day.

Her last chance to hook up with Mr. Right is at the wedding of the

brother of Mr. Right. So, Diaz, Blair, and Applegate make a road trip out

of it.

That’s the plot. All of it. From this point forward, “The Sweetest

Thing” deteriorates into a series of seemingly improvised comedy sketches

threaded together with only the vaguest semblance of story. The movie

turns into an aimless gross-out comedy, pulling out all the stops,

hitting an all-time low when Diaz is stabbed in the eye with male

genitalia while peeking through a wall hole in the most grotesque

bathroom ever recorded on film.

To qualify, I’m all for gross-out comedy when it’s done well.

“American Pie” pulled it off by weaving the fart jokes with a genuinely

touching coming-of-age tale. It used its racy humor to distract you from

an unapologetically sweet core.

The cast of “The Sweetest Thing” looks like they had a ball making

this movie, which is too bad, because it’s a real dud to watch. The

advertising campaign mislead you into thinking this is a sophisticated

comedy; they really edited together the 30 seconds of narrative together.

“The Sweetest Thing” is the worst movie I have seen in a very long

time. There may be an abundance of scantily clad woman on-screen, but if

that’s what I’m looking for, I’d rather buy a copy of the Sports

Illustrated Swimsuit Issue -- it’s cheaper.

* ALLEN MacDONALD, 29, is currently working toward his master’s degree

in screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.