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
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
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.
Being BAD never looked so GOOD!
Trouble never looked so good.
A man develops a violent obsession with the woman who saved him from committing suicide.
What is your function in life?
In life he was a movie star, in death he became a legend.
A former salsa prodigy begins dancing again in an effort to charm his new boss.
They made their bed. Now they have to die in it.
As her marriage falls apart, Ema must face the guilt she has toward her adopted son, whom she has returned to the orphanage.