Mala influencia

I've seen some bad movies in my life, but this one? This one is a masterclass in chaos. It's not that I'm a film snob-heck, I'm a Vampire Diaries fan, so my standards are flexible-but even I have limits.

Who funded this? Who read the script and said, "Yes, let's go all in"? I have questions.

The leads have the chemistry of two damp sponges. The romance? I've felt more sparks watching two strangers avoid eye contact on public transport.

The scenes are stitched together like a school project-using glitter glue and confusion. Plot points pop up like they matter, then vanish forever. Emotional arcs? Character growth? Not here, honey.

And then there's the ending. The glorious, baffling, award-winningly terrible ending. It's as if the writers said, "Surprise! None of this made sense anyway," and just walked off the set.

Save your time. Or don't-maybe you need a new low bar to appreciate other films.

It started fine but as the film goes on, it made me more and more annoyed. The plot is a disaster, and this "bad influence" guy is the only interesting character in the whole film. The rest of the characters are very weak and leave no great impression. I'm pretty sure, I won't remember in a few day any of the details. It's been a long time since I watched something so bad.

I still can't understand that if she's bullied and threatened, instead of calling the police or hiring a private detective, the father hires just this random "bad" guy. I'm half way through but had to stop watching. It was too annoying to continue.

Mala Pelicula would have been a more appropriate name for this film. Look, I went into Mala Influencia expecting scandal, suspense, maybe a dramatic betrayal or two-and what I got was an over-filtered fever dream that thinks it's smarter than it is. If you've ever wondered what would happen if a Lifetime movie and an Instagram influencer's highlight reel had a baby, this is it.

The leads do their best, but they're let down by dialogue that sounds like it was pulled from a TikTok argument and plot twists that can be spotted from a mile away. The pacing drags in the middle and rushes the ending, leaving key motivations murky and unresolved.

This movie wanted to be better than it was - desperately.

The two protagonists - Eros and Reese - are the archetypal "Bad Boy and Good Girl." However, their depictions could not have been more lackluster if they tried.

Eros is the furthest from a bad boy I've seen in a long while. Even trying to make the actor ride a motorcycle and go to jail still did not help this man make Eros the bad boy he was intended to be.

I think the largest issue with his character is that we only know pieces of him. We are never given the whole story. Even when Reese tries to ask him questions, he completely dismisses her. Which ultimately made him more aloof and standoffish than a bad boy.

As for Reese, while the good girl act was portrayed fair enough, she was completely lacking in depth. Other than knowing she dances ballet, we are given nothing else about what she loves to do or what she aspires to be when she's older. While they do show us her performing ballet, there's never a part in the movie where she says, "dancing is my passion." Thus, resulting in her being completely one-dimensional.

Due to these character choices, when they eventually "love" one another, to me, it is completely unfathomable. It is genuinely nothing more than infatuation.

This is proven further during intense scenes where Reese's life is put at risk, and Eros doesn't even react, much less show he cares. Even her father is completely emotionless throughout her stalking and bullying harassment.

So, how are we to believe that they love her when they don't show it during her hardships?

Lastly, aside from the uninspired love interests, the plot itself is severely flawed. Though some things are "resolved," like her stalker, the reasoning behind why it happened doesn't make any real sense. It seriously could not have been less thought-out. In addition, her bullying was completely unresolved...we never find out why it happened in the first place, much less get the satisfying retribution to those who had been harassing her. Resulting in the end being completely unsatisfying.

And, that's what this movie was in one word: unsatisfying. I hate to say it, but I cannot imagine anyone liking this. I cannot truly find ONE redeemable facet about it. It was simply bad.

The lamest reason to watch a movie - because it's on Netflix - strikes again, and I thought "Bad Influence" would be mostly hilariously bad.

Let me start with some positives. Despite a problematic screenplay, to say the least, Alberto Olmo and Eléa Rochera deliver solid performances as Eros and Reese, the former a bodyguard who must protect the latter heiress from a mysterious stalker. While their relationship as written and executed isn't good, Olmo and Rochera do their best to make their characters work.

Beatriz Sastre's cinematography isn't half bad, either. Many scenes looked beautiful thanks to Sastre's work, which I can always appreciate.

For the rest of the unironic positives, Chloé Wallace's directing was impressive, and a few emotional moments landed.

However, the best thing I can say about this film is that the first half is a goldmine for hilariously bad moments. Here is where I begin discussing the negatives, but I'll dedicate this paragraph to focusing on the "so bad, it's good" negatives. Exclusively in the first half of this 1-hour and 48-minute film, I found myself laughing a lot, mainly because of the dialogue, which I'll get to in a minute. Many lines had me baffled at how they made it to the screen - this is not how normal people speak, plain and simple. I was having the time of my life hearing some of the worst dialogue I've ever heard, and that's what I'll remember first and foremost...

...if it wasn't for the fact that the second half was one of the most boring movies I've seen all year. Chloé Wallace and Diana Muro's screenplay is astonishingly weak. The narrative it creates never got me invested in Eros and Reese's relationship, and despite committed performances, I never felt their chemistry. The emotional moments that worked were when I did feel their connection, but about one or two scenes failed to make it work. As a bonus, the screenplay is confused about whether to focus on the central love story or the stalker that caused the movie's events in the first place. Even when they focus on who the stalker is, it's not worth the wait. Oh, and the dialogue is terrible!

It's time to go back to the boredom. The second half tested my patience in a way that only the worst movies do, going into cliches that aren't a significant problem, but the film handles them so weakly that they become an issue. I already mentioned the anti-climatic reveal of the stalker, but the ending also doesn't know what note to leave the audience with. No spoilers, but it tries to be both sad and uplifting, but I ended up feeling neither. I wasn't invested enough in this story to care enough, but the tedium didn't help.

Can we talk more about the central relationship? I should care about Eros and Reese, at the very least. I feel bad for Olmo and Rochera because, once more, they are trying their best to make their characters believable. Outside of two scenes, I failed to feel their romantic spark. What's even sadder is I had one thought very often: why don't I watch "My Fault: London" again? That film theoretically should have been what "Bad Influence" was because it has the same basic layup. In that movie, Noah and Nick come together due to circumstances out of their control and fall in love because the "bad boy" is charming. Then, a threat looms in the background, leading to a third-act climax that, depending on its execution, can or cannot work. That's the key word, though: execution. Strong directing, writing, and cinematography complement Asha Banks and Matthew Broome's magnificent performances in that film, which "Bad Influence" wishes it could do.

One more thing: the choices they made for music were shockingly awful. I'm not one to rag on the music of a film unless I feel it stands out, and this is one of those situations where it did. I'm unsure if it's only a me thing, but I shouldn't be able to notice it.

"Bad Influence" lived up to its title. It's a bad, sometimes enjoyable, but more or less exhausting watch that isn't worth your time. I'm excited for "Your Fault: London," but there's no way I'm watching any potential sequel for this.

Technically, the acting, directing, and cinematography are all strong, but the screenplay weighs the technical score down to a 6/10.

For the enjoyment score, the "it's on Netflix" excuse is not one to use for this movie. Watch "My Fault: London" instead. 3/10. I'm interested in seeing what Olmo and Rochera do next, but not for a sequel, unfortunately.