User Reviews

***SPOILER*** Being pushed around all his adult life yuppie financial analyst Michael or Mick Boll's, James Spader, abusive life made a sudden turnaround when he accidentally ran into his "Knight in Shining Armor" the mysterious Alex, Rob Lowe.

Just trying to be a nice guy Michael paid for a drink that Karen,Susan Lee Hofman,didn't have the cash for. In pops Karen's jealous boyfriend Willie, Jack Kaake, who in finding out that Michael acted like a gentleman to his now estranged girlfriend tried to plant, by slamming it, his face into the counter! If it wasn't for Alex coming to Michael's rescue, with a broken beer glass, the movie "Bad Infulance" would have been over almost as soon as it began.

Taking the wimpy Michael under his wing Alex gets him involved, after getting Michael stone cold drunk, in a number of armed robberies that he later uses to blackmail him with. Alex also has Michael's rival, for senior financial analyst, at his firm Patterson, Tommy Maggio, beaten to a pulp in order for Michael to get the coveted job. Not that Patterson was an innocent party in his screwing Michael by erasing all the hard work, on his personal computer, that he did to get the job.

It's later that Alex really gets to work on Michael in not only getting him in bed with hooker Claire, Lisa Zane, but video taping the sleazy and sordid event. Alex uses the incriminating video to destroy Michael's wedding plans to rich well beard and sweet Ruth Fielding, Marcia Cross, whom he was engaged to marry! Later in order to keep Michael in line Alex kills Claire, with Michael's favorite golf club,in his apartment leaving him as the police's prime suspect in her murder!

As it turns out Alex's plan to have Michael under his control backfired in Michael becoming almost as smart and manipulative as he is. In fact Alex in trying to make Michael into his personal slave created a Frankenstein monster instead. A monster who in the end with the help of his even more scared and wimpy older brother Pismo, Christian Clemeron, would put the arrogant and sure of himself Alex in his place! By having him take a long walk off the end of a short pier on the Pacific Ocean!

You never get to know what Alex's fascination with Michael really was. Alex like the "Lone Ranger" just shows up at the bar and takes control of Michael's life as if, Michael's confrontation with Willie, was planned far in advance! Alex getting Michael involved in his murderous antics also didn't make much sense in that Michael can, like Alex did to Michael, implicate him in them as well!

The only explication I can see in Alex's actions is that he just wanted to corrupt, like the Devil, a harmless and innocent person. And as it turned out it was that person, Michael, who used Alex's underhanded tactics in his own self preservation by having them boomerang on him!

"Bad Influence" is an example of that sub-genre of the thriller which I have come to think of as the "……. from Hell" film. The basic plot of such films is that a stranger comes into the life of the hero. At first this stranger seems affable and friendly, but quickly reveals himself or herself to be a dangerous criminal or psychopath, and the hero finds that he is in danger. The genre is an old one; this is, for example, the plot of Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train". It was, however, given a new lease of life in the late 1980s and 1990s by the success of "Fatal Attraction" (or "One-Night Stand from Hell"). Other examples include "Pacific Heights" ("Tenant from Hell"), "Single White Female" ("Flatmate from Hell") and "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" ("Nanny from Hell"). This last film, like "Bad Influence", was directed by Curtis Hanson. There are also elements of the "…. from Hell" plot in "The River Wild", another Hanson film from the nineties.

The plot of "Bad Influence" can be summarised as "Bloke-you-meet-in-a-bar from Hell". The hero, Michael is a young business executive, the sort of person who in the eighties or nineties would have been described by the now-dated slang term "yuppie". Yuppies during this period were normally characterised as pushy, aggressive, go-getting types, but Michael is anything but. He is a wimp who lacks self-confidence and allows himself to be pushed around at work by his unscrupulous colleague Patterson, his rival for an important promotion, and at home by his domineering fiancée Ruth. (Marcia Cross in the days before she became a desperate housewife).

One evening Michael tries to chat up a girl in a bar, and is saved from being beaten up by her jealous boyfriend by a mysterious stranger, a young man named Alex. (Interestingly enough, the female antagonist in "Fatal Attraction" also bore this same unisex Christian name). Alex not only befriends Michael but also encourages him to be more self-assertive. Under Alex's tutelage Michael finds the courage to stand up to Patterson. Alex also engineers the break-up of Michael's relationship with Ruth, something which does not unduly concern him, partly because he was never really in love with her, partly because Alex finds him a new girlfriend, a sexy good-time girl named Claire.

And then, of course, it all starts to go wrong. It always does in films of this nature. Alex turns out to be not only a criminal but also completely mad. Under his influence Michael takes part in two armed robberies, following which the two men break into Patterson's home and beat him up. Michael, alarmed at the way things are developing, tries to end his association with Alex, only to find that Alex is not a man to take no for an answer. He not only steals all of Michael's possessions but also murders Claire and leaves her body in his apartment. Not that Alex has anything in particular against Claire; he just wants her dead so that he can frame Michael for the murder.

Well, it's not just Michael's life that's going Pete Tong. The film itself has been teetering on the edge of absurdity for some time, and it is around this point that it stops teetering and plunges in headfirst. Hanson and his scriptwriter have ignored two cardinal rules of the "….. from Hell" movie. The first is that the hero or heroine must be someone with whom the audience can identify. Michael Douglas's character in "Fatal Attraction", for example, may have been guilty of a moral lapse when he cheated on his wife, but he nevertheless remains an Everyman figure with whom we can sympathise, someone being punished excessively for a single error of judgement. James Spader 's Michael, by contrast, is less an Everyman than a prize jerk. Someone who will happily participate in no fewer than three violent felonies as some sort of virility test suggested by a casual acquaintance can only be described as both mentally and morally defective.

The second rule that the film ignores is that, in the most successful "….. from Hell" movies the villain must also be someone whom the audience can at least understand, even if they cannot identify or sympathise with him or her. Both Glenn Close's Alex in "Fatal Attraction" and Rebecca de Mornay's Peyton in "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" commit evil deeds, but both are motivated by very understandable, and all too common, human emotions, sexual jealousy in the first example and desire for revenge in the second. Rob Lowe's Alex is not motivated by anything other than an insane urge to commit crimes at the behest of the scriptwriter in order to make the film as lurid and sensational as possible. Alex's character might have been more comprehensible had the film explored in greater depth the latent homosexual attraction which is implied between the two men, in which case his villainy, like that of his female namesake in "Fatal Attraction", could have been explained as the result of anger following rejection by a lover. Even in the nineties, however, Hollywood could often be coy about turning gay subtext into gay text- see also "The Talented Mr. Ripley", etc- and this angle was never pursued.

I watched this film largely because it was directed by Hanson who also made the excellent "L.A. Confidential", perhaps the best neo-noir of the nineties, and was also responsible for good thrillers like "The River Wild" and "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle". "Bad Influence", unfortunately, is just not in the same class. It is an over-the-top, implausible thriller whose ostensible hero is nearly as unsympathetic as its villain. 4/10

Bad Influence is easily one of the best films to come out of the early 90s. In fact it was shot in 1989, which is why it really feels more like a late 80s film. And who better to have in a film like that than two of the most recognizable actors from that era. Indeed James Spader and Rob Lowe were a couple "Brat Pack" members who always had the ability to break out of the "Brat Pack" era and stereotype. Not that that was a bad thing. Hell, if you're going to be stereotyped, that's not a bad one to be a part of. Those kids (more like young adults) made some pretty damn good films (Pretty In Pink, St. Elmo's Fire, Less Than Zero, and one of my personal favorites, About Last Night...). But there's no doubt that, for most of the Pack members, that era was the peak of their film careers. Spader and Lowe were part of the few who broke out. And Bad Influence was, sort of, the beginning of that breakout. And speaking of breakouts, this was the film that really put Curtis Hanson on the proverbial map. Even though he had directed other movies, none of them were very successful. And, although BI was not a box office hit, it turned a small profit and, for the most part, was critically acclaimed. The acting was good, the story was compelling, the screenplay was well written, and the directing was sure of itself. Hanson allowed his characters to develop slowly and methodically, and yet never once did the film seem boring or bogged down. No, Hanson had confidence in audiences (he doesn't dumb the film down)...confident that they'll be patient enough for the movie's second half payoff. All of these ingredients (acting, writing, etc.) come together to make for a very good film. Not a perfect film, but a very good one. If the option was available, I would give it a rating of 7.5 stars.

Side note: Although Spader is good in his role, Lowe was the highlight of Bad Influence. This is one of the best perfomences of his entire career. He's very effective playing the smart, young, and handsome antagonist. In a word, his portrayal of the diabolical and sociopathic Alex was chilling.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed the similarities between this movie and "Single White Female." However, SWF was made in 1992; so if there has been any copy-catting going on, it's on Schroeder's part, not Hanson's.

I also agree that there is a STRONG sexual element between the two men. The scene where Michael talks to Alex to thank him for stepping in with the menacing bar patron looked, to me, like a gay pick-up scene. There was all this weird awkwardness between the two. Michael seems like he's inviting Alex for way more than a drink. And the way Alex changes his mind when Spader turns around and walks away? It looked like Alex saw his butt and decided to give this guy a chance.

Even the "sharing" of Claire, the videotaping of Michael and Claire's sex, the "You make a funny face when you come" - I'm a woman, but I honestly cannot imagine any two straight men having an exchange like that. Alex fools around with Claire before Michael does, although Alex had previously "given" him Claire. To fool around with her and then have her have sex with Michael - it's one degree of separation from Alex having sex with Michael. And then Alex videotaping it and watching it openly on Michael's TV - he did everything but give Michael a golden invitation with a butt plug inside!

Just think this through - do you know any straight male who would like to watch his friend's sex act on tape? And worse, having done so, would comment on said friend's "cum face"? I may be naive, but I think this answers the question of what Alex wants. Alex wants Michael for a lover, and when he spurns him, like some jilted lovers, he exacts his for revenge. He even keeps Michael's own brother away from him - clearly, Alex doesn't want Michael's attention to be on anyone but him.

So for me, this clears up that question - it is undoubtedly a twisted kind of sexual relationship that Alex desires. And Michael had to have seen it and known it and even encouraged it. Remember that Alex's whole spiel to Michael was that Michael was too afraid to stand up for himself and be a man. And Michael didn't seem too upset when Alex showed the sex tape at the party. He seemed relieved, and in fact, went out drinking and celebrating with Alex. Alex uses this as an excuse to see how far Michael would stray from what he thinks are his values out of gratitude to Alex. Would you rob a convenience store? Hell yeah. In fact, let's do a 7-11 next!

And then, who does Alex choose to kill? Claire - Michael's new fling. Perhaps Alex was trying to drag Michael out of the closet, and he felt that by destroying all his other relationships, Michael would be more likely to stay close to Alex and do what Alex wanted. I think the "Navy" mention was consciously done to point out Alex's intentions That and Alex walking out of a bed that had TWO women in it to go concentrate on the next step of his plan. Again, I ask - is there any straight man on earth who would leave a bed with two beautiful women in it, both of whom want to have lots of sex with him?

As for the acting, I agree with those who said it might have been better if they reversed the acting. Seeing Rob Lowe, the California pretty boy as an insecure, wimpy loser would have been interesting. And Spader playing Alex? I know he's done those kinds of roles before, but damn, he always does it so well!

Rob Lowe had the worst haircut I have ever seen on a man, and I lived through mullets AND the '80s. Honestly, I thought he was really bad in this thing, and not just because of his hair. Especially when he had to recite lines like his closing "People are such hypocrites" speech. His face contorted in a totally inorganic way. It seemed like he himself was embarrassed.

Maybe that's why people are unclear as to his motivation. Not wanting to commit all the way to who the character was, he chose instead to indicate a stereotypical villain to us. Instead of committing to the gay thing which the role so clearly requires, he goes neither here nor there. Perhaps he was afraid that "playing gay" would hurt his career. I'm so glad he's become a much better actor now