Havoc

I respect Stephen Gaghan for his ambition. He's not a writer churning out dumb stories with broad appeal in order to cash a paycheck. One look at his resume confirms that he's a writer interested in grappling with the issues of the day, that he wants to write scripts with ideas, scripts for big, ambitious films that actually have something to say. This is a rare thing among writers, and particularly rare among successful Hollywood types.

Having said that, I'm actually not a big fan of Gaghan's work. His greatly lauded script for Traffic, probably his best work to date, was bloated and occasionally ridiculous. Rules of Engagement opened with an interesting premise for an engaging political thriller, but quickly turned into a generic, by-the-numbers courtroom drama. Abandon, the film that marked Gaghan's directorial debut, is a stupid, highly implausible thriller with a bad twist ending. And then there's Havoc, Gaghan's attempt to grapple with the issues of white teenagers enthralled with "ghetto" culture.

Like the other recent films in the "Won't Somebody Think of the Children?!?" genre, films like Bully, Kids and Thirteen, Havoc is condescending, awkward in its attempts to provoke, and has a tin ear for the way young people actually speak and relate to one another. And that's only the beginning of its problems.



Again, Gaghan starts with an ambitious concept, an attempt to deal with a conflict that unites two disparate but related worlds. In this case, our clashing communities are prosperous white teens of Pacific Palisades and thuggish "vatos" from East L.A. The film is well-structured, and Gaghan clearly takes great pains to fairly present both sides of the situation, but that doesn't excuse his many lapses in judgement and clarity.

I think his largest problem is his inability to write believable characters or plausible dialogue. Gaghan's films are well-conceived in the Big Picture - they link several subplots seamlessly, they deal with big issues on an epic scope, they are long and involved but never muddled or unclear. But they are rarely memorable because the writing itself is overblown and awkward.

Havoc suffers more from this problem than any other Gaghan-scripted film I have seen. Quite frankly, you don't believe in these characters, any of them, for one minute. The white teens in particular have far too much perspective on themselves, and tend to speak their inner thoughts and motivations out loud. Gaghan even stoops to the tired old technique of giving one of the teens a camera, which he points at the other teens while encouraging them to explain themselves and their behavior directly to the audience.

So you get a lot of shots of pretty young white girls looking into the camera and saying, "I just act out because I'm bored. No one pays attention to me, so I rebel by getting into black culture." It's a bit trite, but it might be interesting if Gaghan actually explored these ideas, but he apparently thinks just having his protagonist speak them allowed is enough to get his point across.

Honestly, casting is a pretty big problem as well. The white girl at the center of the film is played by Princess Diaries veteran and American Sweetheart Anne Hathaway, in one of those desperate "I'm grown up now, give me real work!" moves that never really turns out that well. Remember Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls? Or Christina Ricci getting totally nude in the direct-to-DVD Prozac Nation? Now you can add Anne Hathaway, getting topless and blowing guys in a low-budget unreleased film few will ever see.

The problem with this is that it's stunt casting (and that the movie becomes infamous way before release as "that movie where Anne Hathaway gets naked," making it hard to take seriously on any other level). Hathaway's not exactly a remarkable actress, but it's almost like Gaghan and director Barbara Kopple (previously known as the director of documentaries like Wild Man Blues and Harlan County, U.S.A.) cast her for the shock value rather than because she had any connection to the role.

Her cohort and best friend is played by the reigning queen of "Won't Somebody Think of the Children?!?" movies, Bijou Phillips. Honestly, how many of these movies does one girl need to star in before it shifts from typecasting and into a cry for help. Bijou's played troubled teens who become fascinated with street culture as part of an overall emotional downfall in Bully and James Toback's woeful Black and White, which also featured supporting work from boxer Mike Tyson. Bijou, willowy and oddly beautiful as she might be, has become predictable in this role.

Finally, Freddie Rodriguez as street tough Hector is horribly miscast. Rodriguez is a pretty great actor (whom you might know as Federico from the recently deceased HBO classic "Six Feet Under"), but he's no more believable as a thug wannabe rapist than Steve Guttenberg. He's just not an imposing, looming figure. If the part called for a young guy who wanted to be a thug, but just didn't have it in him, Rodriguez would pretty much be perfect, but we're supposed to be threatened by Hector's temper and displays of power. Even his accent sounds kind of fakey.

Yeah, I said attempted rapist. You see, Bijou and Anne, bored by the monotonous luxury of their isoalted Pacific Palisades lifestyle and their doofus frat-like boyfriends, cruise to East LA for a little excitement. When they flirt with a couple of hardcore gangstas, and get invited to a house party, things go awry quickly. The girls, after leading on Hector and his friends, decide they'd rather not go too far, and the situation gets ugly, although it's unclear whether a technical rape has occured. When they return to The Palisades, of course, their story grows more unpleasant and violent, and the dumb white fratboys decide to go to the barrio to settle the score.

Like I said, Gaghan goes to great pains to make it clear that both sides are to blame for this unpleasantness. The girls were condescending to these guys, treating their neighborhood and lifestyle like a theme park to be visited and then abandoned. They put themselves in a risky situation knowingly, for a thrill, and then suffered the consequences. And, of course, at the same time, these thugs should have known better than to try and take advantage of stupid drunk white girls.

And on and on and on. I'm not quite sure what ultimate notion Gaghan would have wanted us to take away from this ugly, convoluted story. Something about how we're all emotional creatures, and unable to be completely fair and unbiased when dealing with one another. Something about how white kids embrace hip hop culture and slang out of ignorance, admiring the rebellious spirit without understanding the hard reality of daily life in th einner city. Something about how the privileged live in intentionally sealed communities, cutting them off from their less wealthy, minority neighbors.

But really, Havoc isn't any of those things. At best, it's an erotic thriller, a semi-titilating chance to catch a bit of lithe female nudity while pretending to actually be following a story. If that's all you're after, Havoc is minimally exceptional. For an unrated direct-to-DVD erotic thriller that's already infamous online for featuring Anne Hathaway's first-ever nude scene, the whole production is pretty tame. There's a bit of thrusting, a few nipple slips, and an extended nude suicide scene with Bijou Phillips that manages to be not-in-the-least-bit hot, but that's about it.

Want me to save you the cost of a rental?



Bam. There you go. Don't say I never did nothing for you.