Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
The comedy is frantic and tasteless in the usual Waters mode, but it takes telling potshots at the Hollywood establishment, which isn't nearly so open about the tackiness of its products.
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
France, United States · 2000
Rated R · 1h 27m
Director John Waters
Starring Melanie Griffith, Stephen Dorff, Alicia Witt, Adrian Grenier
Genre Comedy, Crime, Thriller
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In this insane black comedy, unhinged guerrilla filmmaker Cecil B. Demented and his loyal crew kidnap an A-List actress, Honey Whitlock, and force her to star in their no-budget action epic. Determined to punish and revolutionize the film industry, they terrorize the streets of Baltimore in the name of underground cinema.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
The comedy is frantic and tasteless in the usual Waters mode, but it takes telling potshots at the Hollywood establishment, which isn't nearly so open about the tackiness of its products.
Neither Waters' funniest film nor, by a long chalk, his most radical. But it is, as promised, a passing of the torch and an article of suitably perverse faith in the next generation of nutso cinéastes.
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Funnier than "Pecker" but a far cry from the best of Waters's Divine movies.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
A fast, furious and funny fusillade of a movie.
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
Weighed down by the presence of Griffith. She plays her satiric part without much gusto or conviction - as if she were afraid we might believe she really is Honey.
Rolling Stone by Peter Travers
DeMented is Waters the way we like him--spiked with laughs and served with a twist.
Miami Herald by Rene Rodriguez
Shrill and sloppy film.
A small, scruffy, but agreeably energized comedy.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Sean Axmaker
It's Waters' way of saying: It's only a movie.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
Consistently amusing and smart in its choice of targets, but it lacks the manic edge of some of Waters' earlier movies.
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