The Brutal Truth

Devoid of positive attributes, The Brutal Truth follows several former schoolmates (including Moon Unit Zappa’s Alex, Justin Lazard’s T.J., and Molly Ringwald’s Penelope) as they reunite at a secluded cabin after receiving a mysterious invitation from one of their own (Christina Applegate’s Emily). Director Cameron Thor’s incompetence is clear virtually from the word go, as the filmmaker offers up a selection of uniformly unlikable and underdeveloped characters and effectively thrusts them into a situation that couldn’t possibly be less interesting. There’s subsequently never a point at which the viewer is able to work up any enthusiasm for the protagonists’ ongoing exploits, with screenwriter Tim Puntillo’s reliance on laughably inauthentic dialogue only exacerbating the movie’s pervasive atmosphere of pointlessness. And although the various performers try their best to inject the hopelessly flaccid material with jolts of energy, The Brutal Truth‘s relentlessly wrongheaded sensibilities ensure that their collective efforts are all for naught (which isn’t terribly surprising, really, given that this is, after all, a film that features a sequence in which a blind man’s dog is accidentally murdered after being kidnapped for the ransom money). The big revelation that arrives at the end of the movie that’s presumably been designed to tie everything together is especially infuriating, as it comes off as downright nonsensical and ultimately seems as though it belongs in an entirely different film. The end result is a consistently (and aggressively) worthless piece of work that wastes a relatively talented cast, with the all-too-brief Breakfast Club reunion between Molly Ringwald and costar Paul Gleason representing the movie’s only compelling element.

no stars out of ****