Volition

As is the tradition for a Monday night, Tim Paul and myself went out looking for a good film, and ended up easing our way into the Palace/Nova cinema to absorb The Rules of Attraction. Based on the book of the same name by Brett Easton Ellis, who also penned American Psyco (also made into a film), it promised to be, well, interesting.

Overall, I think director Roger Avary did pretty well. Once we managed past the opening cinematic wank (what is with that these days?) the film settled down into a moderately predictable story about some seriously screwed up kids in a US college. Much to everyone's horror it stars James Van Der Beek, of Dawson's Creek "fame". Luckily the most that was demanded of him was standing motionless while a voiceover betrayed his thoughts. He pulled this off quite convincingly.

There wasn't as much gratuitous sex and the plot wasn't as thin as I'd been let to believe, but there was a lot of gratuitious drug use. I'd like to point out however that the average action flick contains much more violence, much more death and sheer destruction than the amount of naughty sex and drugs portrayed by The Rules of Attraction. So don't let that put you off.

Over all, pretty entertaining, not over the top (considering it was based on one of Ellis' books) and well executed. I think I did well because a) I've never seen Dawson's Creek, b) I've never read the book and c) I was expecting it to be craptastic. As always, YMMV.

rating: [***/_]