As seen at the 2009 SXSW Film
Festival:
It’s around 9:30 p.m. on a
chilly Sunday night outside Downtown Austin’s Paramount Theatre,
the premiere venue at the South by Southwest Film Festival. I’m
beat after a day of watching movies, but the all-star cast of
Sebastian Gutierrez’ Women in Trouble beckons. I walk
inside the venue, hoping the film will at least be tolerable
enough to keep me awake. Not an hour later, I’m contemplating
how I might use my hotel keycard as a suicide weapon, as what
I’m watching is so inept it makes the mind wander in such a
morose direction.
The dialogue in Gutierrez’
farce is so obnoxious and attention-begging, it makes Tarantino
seem as understated as Jim Jarmusch by comparison. An
interlocking stories formatted commentary on sex per the basic
premise of its title, the movie is broad and not funny at all.
Gutierrez shot it over about 10 days and, because he didn’t need
much time with them, was able to cast big stars who probably
wouldn’t have otherwise even considered the dead-on-arrival
script. Then again, perhaps the inclusion of well-known names
like Josh Brolin, Carla Gugino, and Marley Shelton is fitting
because Women
in Trouble mostly
attempts graphic body-part jokes that would be right at home in
the average hard-R-rated Hollywood sex comedy. (Like, oh my God,
isn’t making obvious anatomical references so funny?)
Unfortunately for the viewer, this type of gag proves even more
insufferable than the failed attempts at indie-edginess you
might expect from such a low-budget production. Because there is
no reason to care about the caricatures, the goofy and
humiliating plots they partake in don’t warrant so much as a
chuckle. The only saving grace is that a few of the actresses
make for nice eye-candy: when Emmanuelle Chriqui was onscreen, I
perked up enough to confine my thoughts to how boring the movie
was, as opposed to that potentially-lethal keycard in my wallet.
-Danny Baldwin,
Bucket Reviews
Review Published
on: 3.21.2009
Screened on:
3.15.2009 at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, TX.
Women in Trouble is rated R and runs 92
minutes.
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