Body Shots bills itself as a hard-hitting, decade-defining
newsreel on the battle of the sexes, but its punches are weak,
mistimed, and mostly self-inflicted. Cristofer, who also directed
the similarly flawed but Jolie-infused Gia, aims to combine
the comic ensemble energy of movies like Go or Swingers
with the acid bite of Neil Labute's movies, and ends up with a
grating, dour, R-rated after-school special on Date Rape with
a little he said/she said Ambiguity thrown in for pseudo-sophisticate
effect. While the scenes featuring just the male or female hottiepacks
interacting among themselves in preparation for the big night
have some liveliness, the four pair-offs that ensue when the guys
and gals get together don't generate any interest, and the story
suffers greatly when the least compelling pair turn out to dominate
the last half of the movie with their badly-drawn date rape melodrama.
Every few weeks or so One Film turns up in your video store targeted
right at your demographic niche whose bright-boxed mediocrity
must be Resisted--Body Shots is now that Film.