Main cast: Sean Patrick Flanery (Rick), Jerry O’Connell (Michael), Amanda Peet (Jane), Tara Reid (Sara), Ron Livingston (Trent), and Emily Procter (Whitney)
Director: Michael Cristofer
Thank God I don’t have to play the dating scene, if the modern dating scene has degenerated into the war zone this movie depicts it to be. Part Rashomon (everyone gives a different account of a same incident), part date rape movie, Body Shots only convinces me that sometimes a man or woman isn’t worth all that trouble. Really!
A group of men (Rick, Michael, etc) meet a group of women (Sara, Jane, etc) in a bar and they all eventually pair off for some lambada antics. The morning after, however, Sara claims that Michael had raped her. And Michael says that it was consensual, and that she is just angry because he can’t remember her name. Quizzed further by their friends, both parties give really different versions of the story.
So who’s right? What really happened that night?
I admit I’m intrigued enough to keep watching. The ending has many loose ends, however, although I can’t say I’m displeased. This movie offer an interesting view that maybe sex is relative, and men and women view sex and consent in different ways that may prove that yes, perhaps men are from Mars.
Yet at the same time, the movie neither preaches nor engages my interest. Michael, a football hero, is overly macho to the point of caricature (he actually lifts guys he meets off their feet) while Sara is sometimes unbearably sulky and whiny that she comes off as totally neurotic. Perhaps the most memorable characters are the lovelorn Shawn and Jane and Rick, the latter two making no pretensions that they, at least, are out for a night of nothing but boink, boink, boink. When the morning after coo is “Do you have any Tylenol, honey?” you know they aren’t exactly looking for a deep relationship.
Body Shots isn’t a pretty movie, and the repeated flashbacks to Sara and Michael’s sex (or rape) is not for the queasy. While it isn’t exactly likable, it is also dark and disturbing enough to leave me thinking. And that’s not a bad thing.
