Friends & Lovers (1999)
Friends for ten years, a group of twenty-somethings head for the ski slopes as guests of Ian's father. (Ian and dad are estranged because dad worked too many hours when Ian was a lad.) Dad has something to say, but Ian won't listen. Meanwhile, David is gay and virginal; Ian's business partner, Keaton, is unhappy that his sister Jane is pregnant with no plans to tell the father; Lisa is everybody's pal and no one's lover; John, stuck in adolescence, is always on the make. He brings German-born stunner, Carla, and promptly loses her affection to Hans, a fast-talking ski instructor. David meets Manny: they have chess in common. Soon, surprises abound as relationships take new turns.
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Reviews
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
Brilliant and touching
It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
I came to check out a few facts on this movie after watching it. I saw too many negative comments to not make a comment of my own. Critics review this movie very harshly. I thought this movie was awesome. Downey, Dasche, Baldwin, and the rest of the cast will make you laugh for sure. Though Leon wasn't in the flick as much as I would've liked, I still thought it was a great performance. I found myself being drawn in and very interested in this movie. In fact as soon as it was over I immediately rewound it and watched it again. FIND THIS FLICK, AND WATCH IT!
Okay, this movie isn't necessarily as god-awful as many of these reviews would suggest, but I have to agree it is a waste of time and talent. A group of reasonably engaging performers (Robert Downey, Jr., George Newbern, Stephen Baldwin and the amazingly sexy Leon) are on display here, but the movie suffers from sitcom-like superficiality and terribly amateurish direction (from George Haas, who may never work again after this mess.) Basically a sexed-up romantic comedy about a groups of friends vacationing at a ski lodge, "Friends and Lovers" has its moments of fun and frivolity. But the film is full of ludicrous "anatomy" jokes and pointless nudity, and the aforementioned direction by Haas is sloppy and laughably inept. The echoing effects in the ski slope scenes are preposterous, and the blocking of the performers is straight out of a high school play, with the actors facing the camera talking sideways to each other.Perhaps in the hands of a competent director, a good movie might have been made. This isn't it.
Okay, so they're twenty-somethings. Okay, so they've got problems or whatever. But does it strike anyone as odd that these guys tool around in Land Rovers and E-class Mercedes'? And, if they've got the cash for their little romps, why do they road-trip to their ski resort rather than fly? The first twenty minutes alone kill the film, the rest is just its fall to the ground.
There are three kinds of bad movies: movies that defy reality but still entertain, movies that so bad that they're funny, and unforgivable pieces of cow dung that you watch in disbelief as it approaches badness from all directions. "Friends & Lovers" fits the last category like a wedding dress. It is one of the most jaw-droppingly bad movies I have ever seen. This film has, virtually, no redeeming qualities. The acting is wooden and unrealistic, notably by Claudia Schiffer and, surprisingly, Robert Downey Jr. One person I did like and care for was Danny Nucci's character, but he couldn't have save this film if his life depended on it. The characters carry on, endlessly, in boring, silly and uninvolving conversations. This cast could have had a lot of potential had they had a script that wasn't found in a garbage dump. I was never really fond of Stephen Baldwin, the only role I accepted him in was "The Usual Suspects." There was a moment in the film where is a graphic close-up shot of a man's genitals that is, not only gratuitous, but it ruined what could have been a semi-chuckle on my part. I don't know. All was lost on this film. "Friends & Lovers" ranks in the same field as 1997's worst film, "Gone Fishin'."