Tom Sizemore's abrasively edgy lead performance sets the tone for this meandering, low-key character study. Sizemore's character is such a loser-with-a-capital-L that this lower-depths drama quickly turns into an exploitation flick about the dangers of live-in relationships.
Unable to hold down a job, perpetual dreamer Lenny (Tom Sizemore) crashes at the apartment of his brother, Evan (Vyto Ruginis). Meanwhile, across town, hemmed in by office duties that include bedding her married boss (Joe Dallesandro), Eloise (Pamela Gidley) quits her dead-end position with few
prospects lined up. Later, when Lenny screws up a gas-pumping job to drive Eloise (who is a total stranger to him) to an interview, all Eloise sees is Sir Galahad, not an impractical hustler. While Eloise lands a promising assignment as personal secretary to an actress, Ms. Alman (Jennifer
O'Neill), drifter Lenny gets bounced from his new arcade-machine repair job. Things move quickly for these unhealthy star-crossed lovers: Eloise allows Lenny to move in with her, and immediately Lenny badgers Eloise about her past promiscuity. Hypocritically, he then takes temp work as a sound
technician on a porno film. Arrested in a vice raid, Lenny prevails upon Eloise, now thoroughly disillusioned and destitute, for bail. With their resources strapped enough to make eviction a reality, Lenny persuades Eloise to participate in a staged burglary at Ms. Alman's. Unfortunately, the gag
Lenny uses on robbery victim Alman chokes her to death. When Eloise phones 911, Lenny refuses to flee without her. Flashing a pistol at arriving policemen, Lenny is instantly executed, and Eloise is arrested.
An erotic drama without any sensual heat must be considered a failure. For a film like this to connect with the audience, it has to be foremost a sizzling love story. Here the principals seem more likely to get on each other's nerves than under each other's clothes. Unable to create a convincing
portrait of sex as a form of insanity, the film leaves the viewer wondering why Eloise doesn't throw the schlub out and get on with her life. As for Sizemore, usually a brilliant actor (particularly in WHERE SLEEPING DOGS LIE), here he is so intent on perfecting his small-time character's tics
that he loses sight of the bigger picture.
Mired in slice-of-life realism and the kind of semi-improvised acting that rings false, BAD LOVE ultimately leaves you with the feeling that you've just watched a dysfunctional relationship dissected on a talk show. This tale of a woebegone blunderer and the well-meaning masochist who takes him in
(she just can't help herself when bad boy kisses her) has the impersonality of a radio shrink pigeonholing the emotional hang-ups of a lifetime in two-minute sound bytes. What THE BOOST (1988) was to cocaine, this cautionary fable is to addictive love. (Graphic violence, extensive nudity, extreme
profanity, sexual situations, substance abuse.) leave a comment
