Desperate for Love

Christian Slater and Brian Bloom are a couple of best southern high school buds. But cheerleader Tammy Lauren gets between the two of them as if background getting between wouldn't be enough.

Brian's the high school rich kid who's the star football player and of course gets all the girls in high school. Christian is the kid from the wrong side of the tracks, he's the kind who will join the army just to get out of the place he is. In fact if it wasn't for Tammy deciding that marriage was the way to get out of that backwater town they all come from, it's probably what Slater would have done.

Brian goes missing and later Christian's arrested for the crime.

Both of these two are a couple of New York metropolitan area kids and they sound it. Even actual location shooting can't cover up their New York speech pattern though they both valiantly attempt to sound like they're from Georgia.

Even giving allowances that this is a made for TV movie, it's still a pretty bad film. Christian Slater's career was just getting going at this time on the big screen, how they talked him into this is a mystery.

He should have done something to get out of doing this film.

Desperate for love is the emotional thriller that will force the viewer to question every loyalty they have ever had in life. While the cover for this movie claims that Cliff Petrie was "desperate for love" I personally believe that the true desperation was held within Lily Becker. Cliff Petrie gives us one simple example of pure, unadulterated love. Meanwhile Lilly Becker clearly displays fear, depression, and anxiety along with a cunning and seductive deception.

Okay, so the movie wasn't bad. It had an interesting plot and the actors shined. Christian Slater was excellent (was there ever a doubt? The man is a genius) and so was the rest of the characters. There was only one hole in the whole movie- the ending. It was just too "cliff hanger-ish" Sure, there was a definite outcome, but it didn't satisfy the viewer. It is not an awful movie (not like that sad Notting Hill) but it was no Double Jeopardy either. On a scale from 1-10 I would give it a 6. I don't think it would be a COMPLETE waste of time to see it.

Paid less than the price of a rental for the DVD, but it was clearly printed from a VHS tape in mediocre condition. The editing was brutal, but I'm not sure that it was the tape's fault, I think the software used to master the DVD was crap. The result is a very chopped (jarring) feeling ... I felt like the last 10 seconds of every major segment was lost.

Anyway ... the acting is quite good in my opinion. Christian Slater gives a good account of himself, but it's another dark performance, which is his specialty. The girl emotes well, as does the mother. All in all, I found it easy to get and stay in the story.

The plot is pretty standard, but since it is based on true events, it would be kind of hard to criticize on that anyway. I have to say that I enjoyed it. It is certainly worth the low price being charged these days, especially if you like Christian Slater.

Christian Slater is Number 10 on my list of favorite actors, so I bet you're anticipating a splendid review of this movie. Not!! First of all, it's a TV movie--which I didn't know before watching it--and I'm not part of the "Lifetime Movie of the Week" crowd. I hardly consider anything that goes direct to network television (this excludes movies that goes direct to premium cable stations) actual "movies." So this was a supreme cheese-fest for me. Why it grabbed a 5.2 rating, which is high for a movie of this sort, is beyond comprehension. This is one of those movies you have to go rooting for in the 99-cent bin, and please realize there's a logical reasons why those movies are priced 99 cents! And may I add, the girl who plays Slater's love interest--I think her name's Tammy Lauren--is NOT an attractive woman! He'd HAVE to be desperate if he wants to get with that girl.

My advice to all those who appraise Christian Slater--DON'T GET SUCKED IN!!! Use that 99 cents you're about to spend on this movie to add to the ten or so bucks you're about to spend on "Very Bad Things" or "Untamed Heart."

Not Christian's best work.

My score: 1 (out of 10)