"Body Shots" professes to be a movie that defines a decade. However, it is far less profound.
Cool-looking but cliched, "Body Shots" takes us along on a drunken night with a group of twentysomethings in Los Angeles -- and the cotton-mouthed, puffy-eyed aftermath the next morning.Four unnaturally attractive women and four impeccably dressed men with too much hair gel hook up at a trendy dance club. The music thumps, lights flash, bodies grind. It's lust at first sight.
About halfway through the movie, though, the focus shifts from being a lighthearted look at dating to a legal drama. The young men and women pair up in varying states of sobriety, but one couple's encounter is hazier than the others.
Blonde actress Sara (Tara Reid) accuses Mike (Jerry O'Connell), an obnoxious rookie for the Oakland Raiders, of date rape. Mike says Sara was all over him and was more than willing. At first, each of them is totally sure of the details from the previous night, even though both were hammered.
But there is a young lawyer in each group, trying to find the truth. As Rick (Sean Patrick Flanery) fires questions at Mike and Jane (Amanda Peet) picks apart Sara's story, it seems neither can remember exactly what happened. Did Mike rape Sara? Or was the sex consensual? This conflict, while perhaps unoriginal, is the most compelling part of the movie.
Our heroes, Jane and Rick, are, unfortunately, pretty bland. The most interesting characters are those with the fewest lines of dialogue. There could have been a better, quirkier movie about Trent (Ron Livingston), who looks ridiculous bar-hopping in knickers and argyle socks after a round of golf, and Whitney (Emily Procter), who seems like a sweet Southern belle but has some kinky hobbies. Their scenes together are full of surprises.
Director Michael Cristofer uses interesting storytelling techniques. He also skillfully uses grainy slow motion to highlight a kiss or a glance across the dance floor. Then he ruins the moment by inserting other characters who gripe about the woes of dating.
Example: Rick and Jane are smooching at a club, when all of a sudden, Shawn (Brad Rowe), the only wholesome male character, pops up in a corner of the screen, saying, "Sex without love equals violence." Now the movie has shifted from a legal drama to an after-school special.
"Body Shots" is supposed to be a story of young people searching for love. After seeing this movie, there seems to be little hope of finding it.