#76 The Smokers (2000)

It’s been quite some time since I’ve ventured into the realms of the bottom 100. What happened? The Smokers happened. Take a look at the warning signs.

1. The Box: The cheap cover design is an obvious start, but hardly conclusive as fans of cult hits like Bad Taste will attest. A tagline that tries to emulate a critics positive quotation, and the only actual quotations being attributed to no-one, most likely because the only person who said them was the producer to the marketing team. The listing of as many big movies associated with the actors as possible, even desperately adding Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Also highlighting Thora Birch in order to cash in on American Beauty despite her role here amounting to all of 10 minutes. Speaking of which, Thora Birch looks younger here, hinting that The Smokers was not released for some time after completion. Perhaps it would have sat on the shelf longer if two of it’s actors hadn’t become bigger stars. (Birch and Dominique Swain)

2. The Subject Matter: The blurb on the back of the box describes it as “a trio of seventeen year old girls surviving teenage life.” Hold up a minute. If this is set in Bhagdad then I’ll let that phrase go. Otherwise I’d suggest ‘surviving teenage life” usually indicates a film trying to hype whatever central unrealistic scenario it has. If it’s not a comedy then expect to find the director wearing his/her colon as a choker. The other two highlighted selling points of this story are a ‘.44 calibre revolver’ and an ‘aggressive sexual awakening’. I fail to see the relevance of the weapons calibre, unless it’s a distraction from the fact these are the ingredients of a shock and awe film, more at home in a grindhouse cinema than anywhere with aesthetic merit.

3. The Director: It’s her first film, so I would normally approach it with an open mind. However, a glance at her CV shows that after making The Smokers she changed her name and turned to directing porn films such as Young Sluts inc 10 and Campus Confessions 8. Not encouraging.

I could probably go on, but let’s get into the meat of it. Set at a boarding school filled with rich kids in their mid to late teens, the story concerns three of the more anarchic girls, and their relationships with the opposite sex. Karen, Jefferson, and Lisa are the so called ‘smokers’, frequently of cannabis. Tired of being treated as a sex object, Karen (Busy Philips), decides it's time to give men a taste of their own medicine using her friends gun. The three plan a sexual assault on a boy that has been treating Lisa poorly. Things don't go exactly as planned, although as the gun changes hands between the girls there are more incidents.

As far as coming of age stories go this has to be one of the more over the top ones. It's hard to know whether the intention was a feminist message or an exploitation flick. For an exploitation film there are no genuinely titillating or thrilling scenes, and the feminist message goes no further than comparing a penis to a gun. It's confusing and disappointing. The film treads an unusual line between too unbelievable and too realistic. The blasé inclusion of drug taking and a culture of loitering without intent will strike a chord with many who had mis-spent youths. The pacing is realistically slow, containing many seemingly motiveless and pointless scenes. I felt as though I was missing a lot of previous character development, making much of it redundant. As if I were watching a couple of episodes in the middle of a daily soap. Sadly, despite it's explicit sex and drugs story lines, The Smokers will never be as entertaining as a good Sunset Beach omnibus. For a character driven film this is a major flaw. And whilst the pacing may have realism, little else does, right down to the quite implausible finale, which I shouldn’t elaborate on.

This combination of miscues makes it increasingly hard to watch. More out of a lack of interest than anything else, even with all the casual rape chatter. The best, surprisingly tense, scene in the film happens early on and is wasted on a peripheral character (Thora Birch) who is otherwise an overblown stereotype. Although Birch manages to make the best of the role, making her the only character you may want to see a little more of.

The acting ranges from okay to ‘if I threaten a puppies life will you please make an effort?’ In fairness to Miss Swain, the only thing she's done wrong here is be in the film. While her performance is far from stellar, the material largely fades her into the background. Busy Philips seems to have built her character around pulling faces. It borders on a depiction of the mentally ill, or maybe that was what she was going for. It’s hard to tell. The male actors were for some reason uniformly atrocious. It was hard to believe such charisma free characters in various sexual relationships.

For the most part The Smokers tested my patience with it’s confused messages, terrible performances, and a directionless plot. There are one or two glimmers of an interesting snapshot of life trying to get through, but it’s no match for a film like Kids, which handles similar storylines in a far more engrossing manner.

[2.3/10 | 1,505 votes | stats from 27th March 2008]
(I know, just two more oldies before recent stats kick in)

So far:
Most Fun: #79 Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch (1984)
Most Vomit Inducing - #87 The Neverending Story III (1994)