Hard Candy
Sometimes a movie is built up to be something edgy and new and then when you see it you find out that there’s nothing really edgy about it and that it’s just the same old crap with a little different dressing. Well, that’s the deal here with Hard Candy. I’m going to go ahead and warn you that there are going to be spoilers ahead, so if you don’t want to know the answer to the big “mystery” then you may not want to read the whole review. Having said that, I found that the big reveal ruined the movie so really the question isn’t whether or not you want to ruin the movie for yourself, but when.
The plot is pretty simple. Jeff Kohlver (Patrick Wilson) is a 32-year old photographer who meets the 14-year old Hayley Stark (Ellen Page) on the internet. He lures the young girl to his home and finds out that she’s not quite as vulnerable a young thing as he thought. The dead give away is probably when she straps him to a table a proceeds to cut off his testicles. How she got him up there I have no idea. She accuses him of being a pedophile who has sex with his teenage models and also of murdering her friend.
Look, if you are going to take the advice of a reviewer you need to get to know their likes and dislikes so that you can measure them against your own. So here you go, I do not like torture films. I find them pointless and boring. Now you may be saying, “Hey Jackass, you claim to be a horror fan and moreover you like Hostel and The Devil’s Rejects.” To which I’d respond, “Yeah what’s your point.” See the difference is that these two films are dramatic with storylines and suspense but with an element of torture. Hard Candy on the other hand is just a straight up torture film that tries to prop itself up on a shred of a story and very little drama or suspense. Oh yeah, and a lot of shaky camera work so you know when things are “crazy”.
My main beef is really with the story itself. What’s supposed to be so great is that this teenage girl is empowered and fights back against a person who may or may not be a murdering pedophile. Well, first of, the kick ass teenage girl thing doesn’t impress me. We had seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for that, not to mention plenty of films where women fight back. I think we’ve all seen The Quick and the Dead. Oh yeah, I said it.
Second, the whole story hinges on whether or not Jeff is a sexual predator. Otherwise, what’s the point? If he’s just a dumb guy who made a stupid mistake or if this a case of mistaken identity, then you can question whether or not everything is justified. However, if this a movie where a bad man gets what he deserves then it’s just an hour and a half of one person abusing another person. See my point? If in the end you find out that he’s a predator and a murderer you take all the ambiguity out of the film and Hayley gets to walk away clean. The problem is when you do that you pull the rug out from under the rest of the film and negate what little tension you built. Not to mention, they never really convince you that Jeff may be innocent. He looks guilty from the get-go, so when we find out at the supposed dramatic climax that he truly is the monster he’s been accused of being, you shouldn’t be surprised.
Here’s the deal, this movie is just a colossal waste of time. Maybe I missed the point and this film is simply about justice being done to a bad guy by a possible victim, but that doesn’t mean it’s entertaining. If you’re going to do that, at least give me a story to watch, a plot, something. Personally, I find it creepy that this film looks likes a child taking revenge on her molester but in reality it’s a movie where a teenage girl ties up a grown man and abuses his genitals. I think they call that irony.
The Grade
- Story: D
- Acting: B
- Visuals: B-
- Originality: C
- Enjoyability: D-
- Overall: C-
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