Bad Influence (1990)

Overrated

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

I enjoyed this movie very much, which is why it got seven stars from me, but it's by no means a fantastic or transcendent experience. It does it's job as a thriller ably, and it's worth watching. The good: You do care about the characters, and James Spader and Rob Lowe are both fantastic actors who are on the top of their game here. It's interesting to see Spader play a guy who isn't super cool and self assured for a change, and he handles it well. Lowe channels a bit of Patrick Bateman and creates a great GQ sociopath. The supporting cast is quite good as well, however this could very well have been a two-man film, as you can fit the dialog of all the other characters in the movie combined onto maybe two sheets of paper. The director also had a great eye for style, as the locations, clothing and music were gorgeous and perfectly suited to the era, and gave the film a great deal of authenticity. The bad: I'm not entirely convinced why Spader was so quick to discard his fiancé (who was beautiful, rich and from all indications a very nice person that cared for him a great deal). The film never really sets up any kind of conflict or apprehension between the couple to justify Spader's truly rash behavior. Yes, I get that he wanted a taste of the bad-boy life that Lowe was a part of, but he seemed to throw it all away far too easily and willingly. For the type of character that he was, I'd expect a little more internal conflict, moralizing and apprehension to go along with a decision like that. It just seems like his descent was inexplicably rapid and left a lot of questions unanswered. Beyond that, I think the ending (or last 30 minutes or so) could have been done a little better. The good does really outweigh the bad, and the movie is genuinely worth watching if you're a fan of the genre. Don't expect a Michael Mann film, but you can definitely get some solid entertainment value out of it nonetheless.

"Bad Influence" is an example of that sub-genre of the thriller which I have come to think of as the "……. from Hell" film. The basic plot of such films is that a stranger comes into the life of the hero. At first this stranger seems affable and friendly, but quickly reveals himself or herself to be a dangerous criminal or psychopath, and the hero finds that he is in danger. The genre is an old one; this is, for example, the plot of Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train". It was, however, given a new lease of life in the late 1980s and 1990s by the success of "Fatal Attraction" (or "One-Night Stand from Hell"). Other examples include "Pacific Heights" ("Tenant from Hell"), "Single White Female" ("Flatmate from Hell") and "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" ("Nanny from Hell"). This last film, like "Bad Influence", was directed by Curtis Hanson. There are also elements of the "…. from Hell" plot in "The River Wild", another Hanson film from the nineties.The plot of "Bad Influence" can be summarised as "Bloke-you-meet-in-a-bar from Hell". The hero, Michael is a young business executive, the sort of person who in the eighties or nineties would have been described by the now-dated slang term "yuppie". Yuppies during this period were normally characterised as pushy, aggressive, go-getting types, but Michael is anything but. He is a wimp who lacks self-confidence and allows himself to be pushed around at work by his unscrupulous colleague Patterson, his rival for an important promotion, and at home by his domineering fiancée Ruth. (Marcia Cross in the days before she became a desperate housewife).One evening Michael tries to chat up a girl in a bar, and is saved from being beaten up by her jealous boyfriend by a mysterious stranger, a young man named Alex. (Interestingly enough, the female antagonist in "Fatal Attraction" also bore this same unisex Christian name). Alex not only befriends Michael but also encourages him to be more self-assertive. Under Alex's tutelage Michael finds the courage to stand up to Patterson. Alex also engineers the break-up of Michael's relationship with Ruth, something which does not unduly concern him, partly because he was never really in love with her, partly because Alex finds him a new girlfriend, a sexy good-time girl named Claire.And then, of course, it all starts to go wrong. It always does in films of this nature. Alex turns out to be not only a criminal but also completely mad. Under his influence Michael takes part in two armed robberies, following which the two men break into Patterson's home and beat him up. Michael, alarmed at the way things are developing, tries to end his association with Alex, only to find that Alex is not a man to take no for an answer. He not only steals all of Michael's possessions but also murders Claire and leaves her body in his apartment. Not that Alex has anything in particular against Claire; he just wants her dead so that he can frame Michael for the murder.Well, it's not just Michael's life that's going Pete Tong. The film itself has been teetering on the edge of absurdity for some time, and it is around this point that it stops teetering and plunges in headfirst. Hanson and his scriptwriter have ignored two cardinal rules of the "….. from Hell" movie. The first is that the hero or heroine must be someone with whom the audience can identify. Michael Douglas's character in "Fatal Attraction", for example, may have been guilty of a moral lapse when he cheated on his wife, but he nevertheless remains an Everyman figure with whom we can sympathise, someone being punished excessively for a single error of judgement. James Spader 's Michael, by contrast, is less an Everyman than a prize jerk. Someone who will happily participate in no fewer than three violent felonies as some sort of virility test suggested by a casual acquaintance can only be described as both mentally and morally defective.The second rule that the film ignores is that, in the most successful "….. from Hell" movies the villain must also be someone whom the audience can at least understand, even if they cannot identify or sympathise with him or her. Both Glenn Close's Alex in "Fatal Attraction" and Rebecca de Mornay's Peyton in "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" commit evil deeds, but both are motivated by very understandable, and all too common, human emotions, sexual jealousy in the first example and desire for revenge in the second. Rob Lowe's Alex is not motivated by anything other than an insane urge to commit crimes at the behest of the scriptwriter in order to make the film as lurid and sensational as possible. Alex's character might have been more comprehensible had the film explored in greater depth the latent homosexual attraction which is implied between the two men, in which case his villainy, like that of his female namesake in "Fatal Attraction", could have been explained as the result of anger following rejection by a lover. Even in the nineties, however, Hollywood could often be coy about turning gay subtext into gay text- see also "The Talented Mr. Ripley", etc- and this angle was never pursued.I watched this film largely because it was directed by Hanson who also made the excellent "L.A. Confidential", perhaps the best neo-noir of the nineties, and was also responsible for good thrillers like "The River Wild" and "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle". "Bad Influence", unfortunately, is just not in the same class. It is an over-the-top, implausible thriller whose ostensible hero is nearly as unsympathetic as its villain. 4/10

James Spader again plays the yuppie character (Michael)whose comfortable but numb existence is thrown into chaos and then danger after meeting up with insane psycho drifter Rob Lowe (Alex). Michael has money, career prospects and a wealthy fiancée who he really does not love. Early scenes portray him as an intelligent but timid man who is henpecked by his wife to be and outsmarted by a sneaky co-worker in the race for a job promotion.Alex saves Michael from a bar room beating and when they meet up again Alex begins to pull Michael into the dark underbelly of the rich side of Los Angeles. At first Michael is happy to have Alex rearrange his life even managing to help abort his wedding plans in a hilarious scene. But when Alex beats up Michaels rival for the job promotion, claiming that an intoxicated Michael participated in the beating the friendship comes to an end. From this point on the mission for Alex is to destroy Michaels life ultimately framing him for a murder which is shown in an excellent "death by video" scene. Rob Lowes maniacal laughter as he stares into the camera post murder still chills me to the bone.From this point on it is a race to see who stays alive as Michael finally grows the balls that Alex had previously taunted him about.Another highlight is the eclectic musical score ranging from the LA underground club scene (Skinny Puppy, The Nymphs) to Etta James.Finally nice to see that the DVD has restored the bomb rigged to the car petrol tank scene. When the movie first came out on video in the UK the sensor removed this scene in case it was copied by someone!

***SPOILER*** Being pushed around all his adult life yuppie financial analyst Michael or Mick Boll's, James Spader, abusive life made a sudden turnaround when he accidentally ran into his "Knight in Shining Armor" the mysterious Alex, Rob Lowe.Just trying to be a nice guy Michael paid for a drink that Karen,Susan Lee Hofman,didn't have the cash for. In pops Karen's jealous boyfriend Willie, Jack Kaake, who in finding out that Michael acted like a gentleman to his now estranged girlfriend tried to plant, by slamming it, his face into the counter! If it wasn't for Alex coming to Michael's rescue, with a broken beer glass, the movie "Bad Infulance" would have been over almost as soon as it began.Taking the wimpy Michael under his wing Alex gets him involved, after getting Michael stone cold drunk, in a number of armed robberies that he later uses to blackmail him with. Alex also has Michael's rival, for senior financial analyst, at his firm Patterson, Tommy Maggio, beaten to a pulp in order for Michael to get the coveted job. Not that Patterson was an innocent party in his screwing Michael by erasing all the hard work, on his personal computer, that he did to get the job.It's later that Alex really gets to work on Michael in not only getting him in bed with hooker Claire, Lisa Zane, but video taping the sleazy and sordid event. Alex uses the incriminating video to destroy Michael's wedding plans to rich well beard and sweet Ruth Fielding, Marcia Cross, whom he was engaged to marry! Later in order to keep Michael in line Alex kills Claire, with Michael's favorite golf club,in his apartment leaving him as the police's prime suspect in her murder!As it turns out Alex's plan to have Michael under his control backfired in Michael becoming almost as smart and manipulative as he is. In fact Alex in trying to make Michael into his personal slave created a Frankenstein monster instead. A monster who in the end with the help of his even more scared and wimpy older brother Pismo, Christian Clemeron, would put the arrogant and sure of himself Alex in his place! By having him take a long walk off the end of a short pier on the Pacific Ocean!You never get to know what Alex's fascination with Michael really was. Alex like the "Lone Ranger" just shows up at the bar and takes control of Michael's life as if, Michael's confrontation with Willie, was planned far in advance! Alex getting Michael involved in his murderous antics also didn't make much sense in that Michael can, like Alex did to Michael, implicate him in them as well!The only explication I can see in Alex's actions is that he just wanted to corrupt, like the Devil, a harmless and innocent person. And as it turned out it was that person, Michael, who used Alex's underhanded tactics in his own self preservation by having them boomerang on him!