Spread (2009)

Fresh and Exciting

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This movie is the most degrading movie I have ever seen and should be banned !!!!

oh my... what can i say... i really did try with this one, i like some of the directors other films so i thought i would stick with it... the story begins with a ludicrous scenario where gigolo/hustler/party animal Nikki meets the Anne Heche character at a party... she of course just happens to be a highly successful lawyer with a dream apartment... oh and no partner or children of course... or even friends or so it seems! within a few minutes he's charmed her and is driving her and her car back to the luxury apartment for a night of hot sex etc... and so begins a relationship based on need/lust/desire between two empty vapid people... the story continues with lots of flashy snippets of the couple having sex and as usual for films of people who live in these dream show apartments, everything is always clean and immaculate, the fridge is always full, the bathroom always has fresh towels, the pool is always clean and not full of leaves... i could go on but lets just say watch it yourself and find out does the player get played or does he have a heart after all? and much more importantly will you even care!

Sometimes Hollywood stars need to know their place on the walk of fame. A few stars - like Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis, seem to make the transition from the small screen to the large blockbusters in one effortless bounce. It's almost as if their personas are too big to be contained in a TV sitcom, and need the silver screen to blossom and grow. Others - like Ashton Kutcher - should be happily entertaining us on the small screen, where we can appreciate his quirky - yet limited - talents."Spread" proves that Ashton's skills just get lost once he wandered away from a TV sound stage. This movie is driven neither by tightly constructed plot or nor believable character development. And so sadly, we're reminded again that marginal B-list stars like Ashton Kutcher have to make a living, too.Starring Ashton Kutcher and Anne Heche, this movie vainly attempts to tell the story of a small-time west coast hustler, who imagines himself more successful than he actually is, in the harsh reality light bulb that is LA. Kutcher plays Nikki, who introduces himself with this voice over narration during a three + minute long take. (What male uses the female spelling for his first name?) "My whole life it was obvious I was going to end up in this city. I don't want to be arrogant here, but I'm an incredibly attractive man. I can't help it, I don't try to be, I just am. When I was a kid my mother's best friend used to tell me that I was gonna be a little heart breaker. Turns out she was right. Her husband came home from work one day and found us f*#kin' on the Stairmaster. Los Angeles, California - that's where all the beautiful little heart breakers go to live the dream. 30,000 of them arrive here every single month. 30,000 prom kings and queens, and Little Miss Cute Tits every one of them with stars in their eyes and a dream in their heart. When I first came out here, I had a dream - a dream of an easy life. I was gonna get rich from lyin' around having my picture taken. I was gonna live in the hills and drive a noisy yellow sports car and f*ck 6' girls who weighed 89 lbs. Guess what? Most of it came true." Is it surprising that it's all downhill from here? Kutcher is unconvincing as the LA hustler of wealthy women, since he obviously doesn't have anything to show for it. He picks up a woman, plays lounge lizard for a while, and then gets kicked out or – get this - he leaves! What successful hustler is going to walk out on makeup sex - at night - with only a third grade knapsack to show for it? Nikki spends 70% of his time playing couch potato at Samantha's (Anne Heche) upscale LA home and another 10% of the time playing Kama Sutra around her palatial digs while she whines about how badly he's treating her. And I do mean whines. . .shudder. The other 20% is spent in circular arguments with his dauntless friend, Harry, played by Sebastian Stan. Harry, in turn, lectures Nikki nonstop, with feminist phrases like "objectifying women" – no, seriously! – as Nikki vainly chases Heather, (Margarita Levieva) a small-time hustler who ultimately beats him at his own tired game.This film gets Mr. Kutcher one nod for a sad little moment in a hotel room, where he hopelessly attempts to connect with someone, via a voice message.But this reviewer is snatching back our one nod because of a sick final scene, involving a frog and a live mouse – and we wonder just who in Hades paid off PETA?

I suppose Anton Kutcher must be handsome. He's tall and dark and every woman who approaches him seems to melt into some kind of amorphous plastic object that wobbles towards the nearest bed and begs him for commands.He doesn't do a thing for me but his appearance, his pheromones, and the size of his apparatus seem to suit him well in La La Land. He puts everything he has into selling his looks and stamina to a rich lady like Anne Heche, who puts him up in her spacious modern flat overlooking the City of Angels. They sip expensive wine and nibble bonbons when they're not schtupping each other. Well, they have to do SOMETHING because the Kutcher character has the wit and sensitivity of a cucumber. He's recklessly selfish. His insights run along lines like these: "When a girl tells you you're not going to get anything, that's when you know you're going to get something." Heche returns home unexpectedly and finds him being serviced by a young blond wearing only a golden helmet while he watches Monday Night Football. I guess I ought to make it clear that although this is sometimes labeled a comedy, it's not. Heche tosses out all the fashionable clothes she's bought him, and then throws him out too.This puts Kutcher on the street and he must hock a few of his more outrageous items from Prada in order to get along, while mooching off a male friend.Then he runs into Margarita Levieva, a dark-eyed pretty thing who waits tables. She ignores his advances at first but he insinuates himself into her apartment, when he begins to put his usual moves on her. She insists he sleep on the couch so he doesn't get the wrong idea, but the light is no sooner out in her bedroom than he's creeping towards her in his skivvies complaining that the couch is too short, he's just going to slip in bed next to her, they're both adults, they can keep their hands off each other, and the baloney keeps grinding out, as in a factory. She agrees reluctantly. And I'm thinking, if she falls for this line, she's at least as stupid as he is. "I can feel you're smiling but I can't see it," he murmurs to her naked back. She rolls on her side and smiles openly at him. She's as stupid as he is.Another conquest for Kutcher, whom I am, by this point, beginning not just to dislike but to hate with the kind of rubescent glow that only a hatred born of envy can generate.I breathed a sigh of relief when Margarita turns out to have a rich fiancé back in New York. (He owns the Rangers.) She's not only as stupid as Kutcher but just as avaricious. But, now that the two poor people are in love, she flies back to New York to settle things with the wealthy fiancé who has been supporting her in Los Angeles. Kutcher finds he has trouble reaching her on the phone.At this point, the story could have gone in one of two ways. (1) After several scenes of increasing tension, just when Kutcher is about to give up all hope, Margarita shows up, with an anxious smile, at his doorstep and they fall into each others' arms while a folk song about love swells up softly in the background. At that point, I would have walked out and sold my golden body to the nearest female bidder. OR (2) Margarita decides to stay in New York with Mister Right and Kutcher winds up sadder but wiser with a pedestrian job in Los Angeles.The resolution lay behind Door Number Two, thank God. Yet, I still found it unsatisfactory in a way. Of course I was happy that Kutcher was able to reach Maslow's stage of self actualization. (He delivers groceries.) But real life in my experience doesn't work that way.It's improbable that a man in his mid or late 20s who has been a shallow, self-interested sex fiend for all of his adult life is going to turn his entire character around because he's found someone as unprincipled as he is, and she's shown him what that looks like from the outside. He has a final exchange with Heche when he drops her groceries off. She asks how he's been. He smiles and says he's doing alright -- and he seems to MEAN it. It's a happy ending that sits on the film like a clown's cap on a performing seal. And as he drives his delivery truck away, there is a sappy love song on the sound track.Kutcher's character is a dull man with no particular talent, intelligence, or sensibilities. He isn't evil. He's not even bad. He's simply empty except for his narcissism. He ought to be out there on the boardwalk in Venice, listening to rock on his Walkman, while doing capricious figures on roller skates. The best performances (and the best lines) are given to women, especially Anne Heche, who tells him in no uncertain terms where he stands on the life course. This movie could have been written by Tennessee Williams' ghost.