Benn Farrell The Rules of Attraction (2002)
reviewed by Benn "Where's the Humanity?" Farrell

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I honestly didn't think these kind of consciousless drug and sex movies were being made anymore.

"The Rules of Attraction" is this all over the place movie written and directed by Academy Award® winner Roger Avery (Killing Zoe, Pulp Fiction). It is about a handful of college students and their personal conflicts leading up to their dorm's end of the world party.

The film spends gobs of screen time on how horrible college students live and tests the boundaries of all that is safe and moral.

Avery's choices of what to show throughout certain transitions and scenes is purely unintelligent and contrived, almost like he is trying SO hard to show what an artist he is.

For example, what good is it to show two characters in a spit screen for 45 seconds; one side is Shannyn Sossamon aimlessly wandering the halls of her dorm, not drunk, just lost for some unexplained reason. The other side makes us watch James Van Der Beek (Varsity Blues) taking a shit on the toilet…FOR 45 SECONDS?! WHAT THE F**K?!

The picture continued to throw whatever it felt at the viewer without thinking twice, or even thinking if it "fits" the concept of the picture, which I honestly have to say, I don't think there is one.

Without a single good quality in any of these characters, why are we supposed to care about them and care about what happens to them next. They are all bad people who learn nothing. The viewer learns nothing. The director learned nothing.

So, let me help YOU (the reader) learn something…STAY AWAY FROM THIS FILM IF YOU LIKE MOVIES WITH A DECENT IDEA AND SOMETHING TO SAY. This has neither.

The only good thing about this movie? Jessica Biel (Stealth) plays a total slut and is extremely gorgeous in it, otherwise, I was counting the minutes until director Avery decided he was finished and ended the picture.

The movie wasn't even funny. It is simply director Avery saying, "Take this, and this, and this, and THIS!" Force fed scenes with force fed material. Crap.

Benn - Where's the Humanity?