VERY BAD THINGS —your dauntless reviewer once had the pleasure of meeting one of the 90s most popular porn stars, Kobe Tai, petite, charming and hot enough to melt steel, let alone resolve. I didn’t quiz her on why she made the movies she was famous for, but could have asked her why she disgraced an otherwise honorable career by appearing in this trash-liner.

Black comedy is one thing, plain mean is another: this only succeeds as the latter. Directed & written by Peter Berg, it has five shallow jerks undoing each other one by one after a stripper dies during a bachelor party.  Jon Favreau would later redeem himself, but he’s no charmer here, and he’s out-yucked by Christian Slater, Jeremy Piven, Daniel Stern and Leland Orser. Cameron Diaz and Jeanne Tripplehorn are also sullied. Reeking of smug insiderdom, the 100 minutes of foul-mouthed bad boy venom cost $30,000,000 and then tanked, earning but $21,000,000 to go with mostly scalding reviews. In 1998, it was Berg’s inaugural movie as director: he got better.  Hi, Kobe!