Movie Review by Nigel A. Messenger
Starring: Jerry O’Connell, Tara Reid
Director: Michael Cristofer
BODY SHOTS is a film about sex. It’s not a sex film, although there are sex scenes; it’s not a documentary, although the actors and actresses do often talk directly to the cameras; it’s not an action/adventure, although there is some violence and its not a who done it, although there is a who-did-what key element running through the second half of the movie.
BODY SHOTS is the story of eight twenty-somethings, four males, four females, telling you the viewer about their attitude towards sex and dating.
It is also the story of one night out told in flashback, and from each individual’s viewpoint to portray the different events of the lead up of making arrangements for the night out earlier in the day, the night out itself, and the next day.
Their viewpoints don’t all cover the same events but their own experiences of the night at a nightclub, at which the main objective is not to dance, but to get laid.
It is also at this nightclub that the ‘jello shots’ are served which is where the original title of the movie comes from. A ‘jello shot’ is a small glass of alcoholic jello (jelly in the UK).
The who-did-what element of the film refers to whether a rape did or did not occur. There is no question of sex taking place, as we see if from both viewpoints, but In what context did it happen.
The event is portrayed in such a way and with such a build up, as we know by this time what both characters, Sara’s (Tara Reid) and Michael’s (Jerry O’Connell) outlook on sex is, that even their friends question what actually happened as well as acknowledging that rape could have been possible.
Watch out for the radio broadcast at the end of the film that gives the verdict (we don’t actually see the court case itself) as the camera soars over the city with spectacular aerial shots of the busy traffic system of a city’s movements at night.
