The Cure for Boredom (2001)

Director:

Ruben Preuss

Writer:

James Harris (writer)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Sex, love and murder abound when two guys, two waitresses and a group of mobsters meet. |

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film

Cast

Sunda Croonquist	...	Sunda (as Sunda Lynn Croonquist)
Brad Grunberg	...	Johnny Ragoni
Judd Nelson	...	Max
Seymour Cassel	...	Eddie
Joe Viterelli	...	Fat Tony Ragoni
Sal Viscuso	...	Joey
Paul Ben-Victor	...	Rudy (as Paul Ben Victor)
Mark Stuart Lane	...	Frankie (as Mark Lane)
William Webb	...	Vito
John Hoyt	...	Mikey (as John Glenn Hoyt)
Christopher Berry	...	Sam
James Harris	...	Burt
Amy Hathaway	...	Betty
Marisa Ryan	...	Dayna
Maureen McGovern	...	Waitress

Also Known As:

Sex & Bullets (USA) (alternative title)

MPAA:

Rated R for language, some violence, sexuality and brief drug use.

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Iceland:16 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Film Three, L.P.

May Have Been Intended As A Type Of "Black Comedy", But Never Actually Becomes Much Of Anything.

One wishes to favour this film, as it would seem to contain certain bizarre elements that would make for a successful comedy, but a script that is vulgar, roughly composed, and simply not very funny lowers the overall quality of the work. Action opens as a pair of contract killers, Max (Judd Nelson) and Eddie (Seymour Cassel) are polishing off a young man, son of organized crime head Fat Tony Ragoni but, after the assignment is completed, instead of promptly making themselves elusive, a witless script has Max demanding to go into a local convenience store where he propositions a tipsy young woman by posing as a doctor, adding that he is, in fact, a "sex therapist". Betty (Amy Hathaway), his pickup, has traipsed to the store to be, indeed, picked up, as she drunkenly has stated to her roommate Dayna (Marisa Ryan) and she, with murdering Max in tow and apparently satisfactory for her intentions, returns to the women's apartment for further consideration of mindless frolic. Dayna, not wishing to contend with the clamour of amoUrous merrymaking, instead goes to a local restaurant whereupon she meets Sam (Christopher Berry) and Burt (James Harris), roommates themselves, who plainly have no particular purpose in life, although an audience must deal with the misfortune of listening to Burt's weak attempts at being humorous. Meanwhile, Fat Tony (Joe Viterelli), desirous of bidding a proper goodbye to the corpse of his slain son, deposited within the trunk of Eddie's vehicle, assigns two thugs to locate the killers in well-cast scenes that would have been more enjoyable if under the control of skillful direction. To complicate matters even more, a low grade criminal employed by Fat Tony steals a car that just happens to be Eddie's, with its body laden trunk, at about which time Eddie chooses to reveal himself as a homosexual, attempting to seduce Sam in a clumsily artificial sequence, all while Dayna is acquainting Burt, a confessed virgin, with the delights of heterosexual lovemaking. Views concerning sexual recreation are discussed often in needful tones by a good many of the characters during this tale that ostensibly looked to be appealing upon paper, but is manifestly undernourished as a production while burdened with a narrative that is ineffectively worked out. Attempts at whimsy by Harris, as either actor or scriptor, are consistently jejune, particularly so relating to dialogue, with Hathaway, as the sole player secure with a part's interpretation, garnering acting laurels in this disappointing affair that wants for a much tighter hand at the helm.