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| Nicole Sullivan (left) with Linda Graybel (right) in a scene from Bar Hopping. |
This movie is like Citizen Kane, if Citizen Kane
had sucked. - Number Six, while watching Bar Hopping
(mimicking a group of jaded Hollywood insiders in the same movie)
I was at Blockbuster Video recently when I noticed Bar Hopping in the "Pre-Viewed" section. Remembering that Nicole Sullivan appeared in this movie (and that I hadn't screened it yet), I purchased it in order to view it and add it to my personal Nicole Sullivan video collection. From there, the evening went downhill.
Bar Hopping is much like Kevin Smith's gen-x classic Clerks in that it unfolds in a very compressed time frame - it chronicles a few hours (from about 8 PM until closing time) in the lives of a number of self-obsessed Los Angeles inhabitants as they frequent their favorite bars. The movie jumps from one subplot to another, like some sort of romantic comedy on steroids. The main story, however, is about a woman (Linda Favila) who is told by her significant other (Talk Soup's John Henson) that he "needs more space." Interpreting this as a brush-off, she seeks solace in her favorite bar - where she immediately runs into her ex-boyfriend, who is accompanied by two of his friends - a geeky-looking guy (Anson Downes) who is attempting to meet a girl with whom he talked on the Internet, and a pothead (Jack Kyle) who seems barely sentient. We also have subplots about a jilted lover (Kelly Preston) seeking revenge against her boyfriend (Scott Baio), a woman (Sally Kellerman) in a bathtub, a stoner girl entertaining a bunch of Kuwaitis - this plot doesn't even get resolved - and we also have Kevin Nealon as a lonely off-duty cop who sees St. Pauli Girl in his beer-induced hallucinations. Interspersed in between all these vignettes is Tom Arnold as a bartender at some unknown bar (he's not the bartender at the bar in the movie - it's a different guy), talking to the camera (breaking the third wall, I suppose) and dispensing witticisms and sage advice from behind the bar.
Unlike Clerks, this movie ultimately fails to deliver. I do not know how much money Bar Hopping cost to produce, but it is a grave injustice if it took more than a couple of million dollars to make (Clerks cost less than thirty thousand dollars), even with the all-star cast. The production values here are very limited, but more importantly, the script is absolutely awful - which is probably why this movie was never theatrically released, and why the creators probably chose the direct-to-cable/direct-to-video route. Such a strategy also guaranteed that the movie would be seen by as few people as possible, thereby avoiding further embarassment to the producers and director. A large part of the problem with this film is the fact that (if I am any indication) the viewer is unlikely to be able to relate to these completely narcissistic, callow individuals. At first I thought it was a cultural issue - having lived in the Northeast my entire life, I am not exactly someone who would find a movie about night life in L.A. very interesting under the best of circumstances. But other people have also found this movie to be insipid and banal - check out some of the reviews at The Internet Movie Database for further proof. What is so remarkable, however, is not just that the movie is a critical failure; rather, the way that it fails is noteworthy. The writers took an idea with considerable comedic potential - generation-xers try to score in Hollywood - and ran it into the ground, in spite of the fact that the movie contains a number of celebrities, and a number of people with a comedic reputation (Nicole Sullivan and Kevin Nealon (ex-SNL) come to mind, as does John Henson). The constant switching from subplot to subplot, which should help keep the attention of the viewer, is instead simply annoying - I felt like smashing the TV after the film had switched to the gay bar with the shirtless blond-haired guy for the umpteenth time. This movie is so bad that it is hard to imagine a movie this bad being written by a single person - such sludge could only be a collective effort, requiring bad ideas from two or more people. [The box credits confirm my suspicion: it was written by Linda Favila and Anson Downes.]
As a result, I would not recommend Bar Hopping to the average movie fan - unless you need something to clear out unwanted guests after a long dinner party, in which case I suggest you pick up a copy on video (or better yet, tape this movie the next time it's on Showtime; that way you don't have to waste hard-earned money on this dross). If, however, you are a Nicole Sullivan fan, you may want to see this movie, if for no other reason to see her kiss another girl [this is her first on-screen lesbian kiss, unless I'm mistaken] and to hear her curse like a longshoreman. Ms. Sullivan gets significant screen time in this film - she is one of the principal stars, and appears in most of the scenes. She acts competently enough, but she still can't save this dreck - neither can the rest of the all-star cast. There are some funny moments in Bar Hopping, but not nearly enough to justify its ninety-minute length. And that is what irked me most about this movie: other than the fact that Nicole Sullivan was in it, watching it was an utter waste of time.
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