Spring Breakers

Despite the four star review and quote you see in the picture, Spring Breakers is not a four-star film. Its barely even a film at all! Now, I'm not a wierd-indie-film lover but this was not a wierd-indie-film.  It was more like a hour and a half music video, except there is no music, no story, and barely little acting. The most acting being done here is by James Franco, behind a flashy grill, sunglasses, and hair braids.  Instead of a story, director Harmony Korine splices together short clips of events, somewhat in order, and expects us to infer a story from what he shows us.  It's largely incomplete.  This film wants to be lots of things and is none of them. It wants to be a party movie like Superbad, it wants to be a gangster/crime film like Scarface, it wants to be a lost teen drama, but its none of these things.  We have four female protagonists but there is so little dialogue that we don't know their names. We know there is an innocent one who leaves the film halfway through, and three slutty ones. I found out that Vanessa Hudgens' character was named Candy 5 minutes before the film ended.

A lot of this film is cutaways to young, nameless, bikini clad women, partying and mugging for the camera. Half the film is this footage, as every time we feel like we're getting somewhere in the scene, the director cuts away to this footage, completely undercutting any drama or characterization he had been building. We know it takes place on spring break already! We've heard James Franco's character repeat the line 10 times! Even more disappointing is that James Franco's Alien gangster is the most interesting character of the film, but with all the cutting away he seems like a caricature.  Its clear the Franco has fully developed this guy, but the script nor the director wants to let him flourish.   Towards the end of the film we have what feels like 10 minutes of the girls and Alien getting ready for a robbery, but instead of a sequence we hear James Franco's character ask over and over again, "Y'all ready for this?" Total crap.

I feel bad for the actresses here. I'm sure they read the script and were eager to get away from their "Disney Princess" image by being edgy, smoking pot, snorting cocaine, having sex, etc etc. That's fine, I was interested in seeing if they could act while doing all that.  What acting though? We barely hear any dialogue from the girls, if we do we hear it while we watch them snort cocaine, or gargle beer. It's a totally disjoiunted experience, that makes these girls seem less like actresses and more like dimwits.  I'm sure it was a blast to film, but its excruciating to watch.  Needless to say, I'll be avoiding anything else by "director" Harmony Korine from here on out.

0 out of 5 Stars.

Trailer