“Extreme views lead people to extreme measures”

The Scoop: 1995 R, directed by Stacy Title and starring Cameron Diaz, Courtney B. Vance, Ron Eldard, and Ron Perlman

Tagline: Eat… drink… and be buried…

Summary Capsule: A group of liberal grad students decide to rid the world of conservatism.

Kym’s rating: Three and a half glasses of poisoned wine out of four

Kym’s review: This is one of the better movies that I saw last year. It was recommended to me by a friend, so I picked it up without even reading the box. Boy, was I surprised when the plot started going. Basically, these liberal grad students have dinner and discussion every Sunday. One Sunday, their guest happens to be Zack (played extremely well by Bill Paxton) who is a little bit of a right-winger.

One thing leads to another and Zack ends up dead. As opposed to going to the police, the grad students decide to bury Zack in the backyard. After mulling this over for a while, they begin to think that maybe, just maybe, killing Zack has made the world a better place. Such begins their descent into a radical new way to make a difference as a liberal.

They accomplish this by inviting over a new guest each week (these range from a high school student suing her school for requiring sex ed. to a priest who thinks that AIDS is the cure for homosexuality) and killing them if they cannot change the guests’ minds.

There are two reasons that I got such a kick out of this movie. The first one was the dialogue, which I found to be extremely witty and interesting. The second was that the liberal that I am received quite a lot of satisfaction from watching right-wingers meet a nasty demise. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and grow to like it more each time I watch it.

Justin’s rating: Two Democratic Asses out of Four (Or Sixteen Republican Elephant Doots out of 32)

Justin’s review: This is the latest entry in the new Hollywood genre called, “Let’s Make A Film Guaranteed To Offend Everybody!” So warning in advance there. As an old adage goes, two things you don’t discuss at the dinner table are death and politics, and The Last Supper manages to take both and make them into a film I would call the “wincer of the year”. I winced quite a bit.

Sure, I recognized it was a farce, a satire on extreme positions of both political views, but there is no tact here, no middle-of-the-ground searchings — just a concept that got out of the writers’ control after ten minutes into the film. The film, in a word, is about extremism. That 5% representation in each faction of liberals and conservatives that seem to speak for the rest of us.

But this film isn’t really making any bold statements about political issues more than saying, as one of the main characters stated, “Extreme views lead people to extreme measures.” So a group of five liberals invite an ultra-conservative into their house for dinner each week and kill them when the chip on their shoulder becomes apparent.

This goes fine for, say, a half hour, when these five turn from good intention to “Let’s Go On A Killing Spree” mode and kill everyone they see, more or less, for the sheer hell of it. You don’t get time to care about the main characters, since little is ever revealed about them. The dinner guests are killed off in minutes, or even seconds. But this film does make some excellent points about extremism, and the acting talent of the Rush Limbaugh-type guy almost makes up for the film.

Oh, yeah, it’s supposed to be a comedy, but I forgot to laugh.

Groovy Quotes:

Lucy: Extreme views lead people to extreme measures.

Paulie: We’ve got to call the police. They’ll understand.
Luke: Sure they would. Grad student kills war hero with a knife. You’ll probably just get a ticket.

Luke: People disappear all of the time.
Jude: Especially in Iowa. We probably saved him from an alien abduction.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Citizen Ruth
• With Honors