Friends & Lovers

With a cast like this, you figure the film shouldn't be that bad, but believe me it is. The cast are fighting a losing battle from the start, Robert Downey Jr, should kick himself for getting wrapped up in this film, and as for his accent, the Bavarians have probably put a Fatwa out on him. Claudia Schiffer, shows some potential, but the gag that she falls for a guy with the line "Have you ever considered being a model?" is so thin, it makes Twiggy look over weight. Alison Eastwood also shows potential, but again drowns in the watery story. If this was a kids report card, the phrase 'Can do much better' would be the the one that stands out

I didn't think this was such a bad movie. I've certainly seen worse. As for Robert Downey Jr.'s accent, it was supposed to be bad (his character was from New Jersey!). I like Danny Nucci, and I wish I could see him get better roles. All in all, I think this is a fair movie. 5/10

So cliched stupid, that even the nudity fails. The capping scene when the father and son let it all hang out and bury their emotional hatchets into your poor headached viewer skull, while a string quartet nearly drowns the dialogue, is offensively bad in the offensively bad extreme. This is one of those movies where you can tell everyone onscreen is having the time of their lives, and that fact all the more irritates you because you are being tortured while they are up there making merry millions. Whose son or nephew is George Haas for pete's sake?

Friends and Lovers is a meandering and pointless story about a half dozen depthless characters finding love and sex in a luxury ski lodge. The characters don't seem to have any past but thanks to a talented product placement director, they do have very expensive cars and clothes. Tedious themes (son estranged from father, insensitive Lothario who can't find love) aren't helped any by a gay story line that suggests the writer has never met a gay person in his life. In an industry where producers have to struggle to piece together the funding for a film like "The Opposite of Sex", its upsetting to see such a waste of human effort and money as "Friends and Lovers".

Okay, this movie isn't necessarily as god-awful as many of these reviews would suggest, but I have to agree it is a waste of time and talent. A group of reasonably engaging performers (Robert Downey, Jr., George Newbern, Stephen Baldwin and the amazingly sexy Leon) are on display here, but the movie suffers from sitcom-like superficiality and terribly amateurish direction (from George Haas, who may never work again after this mess.)

Basically a sexed-up romantic comedy about a groups of friends vacationing at a ski lodge, "Friends and Lovers" has its moments of fun and frivolity. But the film is full of ludicrous "anatomy" jokes and pointless nudity, and the aforementioned direction by Haas is sloppy and laughably inept. The echoing effects in the ski slope scenes are preposterous, and the blocking of the performers is straight out of a high school play, with the actors facing the camera talking sideways to each other.

Perhaps in the hands of a competent director, a good movie might have been made. This isn't it.