The black art of the teen movie has come a long way in the last couple of decades. Initially notorious for breasts-ahoy sex comedies written by people with single-digit IQs, the genre scored something of a credibility boost when the likes of John Hughes arrived on the scene (much to the pleasure of young aspiring filmmaker Kevin Smith, but that’s another story for another day). Hughes’ teen movies were different - they were clever, insightful, moving and smart, and almost all of them were hits (Hughes, sadly, moved on into the heinous world of children’s’ slapstick comedy, but that’s also another story for another day). Suddenly there was a teen movie boom - some terrific (Better Off Dead, Say Anything, Pretty In Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Fast Times At Ridgemont High) and some tragic (Mannequin, anyone?) but all of them reaching for a little more emotional resonance with their target audience than the likes of My Tutor or the mysteriously acclaimed Porkys. All booms must come to an end, of course, and the arrival of the ‘90s prompted a dry spell that was broken only by the re-emergence of the sex comedy with American Pie, There’s Something About Mary and John Hughes-influenced films like Can’t Hardly Wait (which, as its directors correctly point out in their later Josie And The Pussycats, was underrated).
And the point of the above capsule history lesson? Simply to remind you that it’s all been done before, and if it can’t be done better - or at least differently, then it shouldn’t be done at all. And that’s where Too Smooth comes in.
Too Smooth was made back in 1998 under the bizarre title Hairshirt - and in case you were wondering like we were, a hairshirt is defined by the New Advent Catholic Encyclopaedia (!) as “A garment of rough cloth made from goats' hair and worn in the form of a shirt or as a girdle around the loins, by way of mortification and penance.” Nope, didn’t answer our questions either, but it does get you wondering just what was going through writer/producer/director/star Dean Paras’s mind when he came up with the title.
You’ll find yourself wondering a lot about Dean Paras, actually, when you see Hairsh… err, we mean Too Smooth (the new title’s an improvement, but only just). The film screened at the Toronto Film Festival in 1998 and then sat on the shelf until 2001, when it was retitled, slightly re-edited and released straight to home video. The story is typically simple: aspiring screenwriter Danny Reilly (Paras) is a consummate ladies’ man who happily lies and schemes his way into bed after bed - until he meets Corey Wells (Katie Wright, also seen in Idle Hands) and is disturbed to find himself falling for her and - gasp - wanting to be honest with her! For Danny, though, this is hard, and what follows is a series of comic misadventures as he lies, apologises, lies again, grovels, grovels more, and tries not to sleep with nymphomaniac Jennifer (Rebecca Gayheart). Meanwhile former girlfriend and TV star Renee Weber (Neve Campbell, who also produced the film with her older brother Chris) continues on her mission of trying to sabotage Danny’s love life. Will it all work out okay in the end? Duh.
We’re all for independent cinema. At its best it’s vital, exciting and offers a lot that mainstream Hollywood doesn’t and won’t. But there’s a rather frustrating sub-genre of indie cinema that seems to be trying, on a two dollar budget, to compete on the same playing field as the major-studio fodder by trying to use their rulebook. It never works, and more often than not just ends up being embarrassing. Too Smooth isn’t quite that bad - it does offer wonderfully over-the-top performances by Stefan Brogren as Danny’s rather insane housemate Tim and Neve Campbell as the narcissistic Renee - but it has major problems. Paras’ lead character in Danny is completely unlikeable from start to finish (and his acting is dreadful), his “playing” of the ever-so-sweet Corey resulting in the viewer wishing for his downfall from the start. There’s no emotional resonance here at all - absolutely none. You simply don’t care about these people. The film also seems undecided whether to be a romantic comedy, a sex comedy or a satire of the film industry. It ends up being None Of The Above.
Too Smooth apparently (we’ve been unable to verify this) won all the major awards at the “Slamdunk” indie film festival in 2000. Maybe the voters had never seen a teen movie before - because everything here has been done before, and done much, much better.
Cinematic genius it may not be, but Too Smooth scores a rather lovely video transfer for this rental DVD release, presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and 16:9 enhanced. While some allowances have to be made for the fact that this film was shot on a tiny budget - and therefore suffers from some minor limitations in the cinematography department - the video transfer is very clean, almost artefact-free and serves the film well. Colours are often vibrant and saturated, and there’s a pleasingly “natural” look to the film overall. Only a tiny handful of specks are seen throughout. As with most current Universal titles, the compression for DVD has been handled nearly flawlessly.
Audio is available in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Surround 2.0, and both tracks are very close to identical for all practical purposes - this is not a show-off soundtrack, and was probably mixed fairly quickly. There’s the usual extrapolation of music to the surrounds along with a little bit of ambience, but generally you’ll be focussing on the dialogue, which stays front and centre and is always perfectly clear.
The only extra is a trailer, offered in 4:3 format with film footage letterboxed. It manages to make the film look like a lot more fun than it really is, names all the Slamdunk awards it’s supposed to have won, and finishes up calling it “a comedy in the tradition of There’s Something About Mary”. I guess Lion’s Gate can’t really be accused of false advertising there - after all, in the tradition of There’s Something About Mary, the lead actress is, err, blonde.