Director: Curtis Hanson
Cast: Rob Lowe, James Spader, Lisa Zane

There are certainly been over the years a lot of great problems man has had to face, either as a group or individually. And while some problems may have disappeared over the years (for example, smallpox), at the same time new problems have popped up (for example, idiots who text on their cell phone while they are driving.) And then there are problems that have not only always existed, but will probably exist as long as there is the species of Man. I would like to talk about one such kind of problem, a problem that doesn't plague society as a whole, but instead is more of an individual problem. That problem is when an individual person is struck by some sort of scandal. True, such a problem does involve the public to a degree, but the real victim of this kind of problem is the person whose dirty laundry is exposed to others. For example, no doubt you know there have been a number of politicians who have been exposed by the media to have had extramarital affairs. When I read about such things in the popular press, I admit that I have kind of mixed feelings. On one hand, there's a part of me that gets some sort of satisfaction if the person was on a real high horse and had previously indicated with his or her words or actions that he or she thought she was superior to others; it's often nice to see someone get their just desserts. On the other hand, there is a part of me that feels some sympathy for the victim of the scandal. I have learned that no one is perfect, and everyone has some secrets that they don't wish others to learn about.

Though I have mixed feelings towards public figures who get involved with some sort of major scandal, I have to admit that I am especially interested with one part of public scandals. And that happens to be what the person who is struck with scandal does after the scandal takes place. Naturally, because of my great interest in movies, I have been very interested when those involved with scandal happen to be those who are working in the motion picture industry. Over the decades, there have certainly been a lot of interesting cases about how Hollywood figures have dealt with scandals. One of the first was with the case of Fatty Arbuckle who in 1921 was accused of rape and murder. Though he was eventually acquitted of the charges, his reputation all the same was so ruined that his career as an actor was pretty much finished. So he eventually became (under a pseudonym) a director, and worked at that until Hollywood was willing to give him another shot as an actor in two-reel shorts - which turned out to be quite successful with the forgiving public. But while there have certainly been career-hurting scandals for Hollywood actors, there have also been some scandals that have actually helped to boost careers. Way back in 1948, there was the case of the up and coming actor Robert Mitchum. In that year, Mitchum was busted by the police for possession of marijuana. Normally, such an arrest for such a crime back then would have instantly killed a career. But the studio that Mitchum was under contract to at the time (RKO Pictures) saw opportunity instead. Using the publicity from the arrest, they portrayed Mitchum to the public as a bad boy, a rebel of sorts. And it worked - Mitchum's next movies for the studio were big box office hits, and he became a big star.

While what Hollywood publicists did for Robert Mitchum is certainly one way a star in a scandal could look for to rebuild their image, there are other possible avenues as well. There is the case of Rob Lowe, for example. As you probably know, in 1988 he was involved in a videotape sex scandal with an underaged teenaged girl, which was right around the time he was making the movie Bad Influence - a movie with a scene involving videotaping sex. Lowe ended up doing probably the best thing anyone in the situation could do, basically shrugging off the incident, even making a little fun towards it to the press. Eventually Lowe's career rebounded, but part of the scandal - Bad Influence - was soon forgotten about. When I recently came across a DVD copy of it, I thought it would be interesting to see if the movie was really worth being a part of all that fuss years earlier. In the opening of the movie, we are introduced to a man named Michael (James Spader, Dream Lover). Michael is extremely unhappy, because not only is he getting bullied by one of his co-workers at his job, he is also stuck in an engagement with a woman he would rather not marry. One day he goes to a bar to drown his sorrows, and he inadvertently gets into an altercation with a hostile bar patron. But just before he is about to get beat up, Michael is saved by a mysterious stranger named Alex (Rob Lowe, Illegally Yours). Michael is of course grateful, and over the next few days befriends Alex. Alex seems to be very sympathetic to Michael, and not only starts to build Michael's feelings of self worth, starts to assist Michael to solve the aforementioned problems in his personal life. At first it seems that Michael is now on easy street, but eventually Michael starts to see clues that Alex may secretly be some kind of sociopath - and a very dangerous one.

If you have an interest in classic Hollywood movies, particularly those that were directed by famous individuals, there's a chance that you might have got from that above plot description a whiff of a certain classic movie. That being Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers On A Train. But I can tell you having seen both movies that Bad Influence, while maybe inspired by the Hitchcock movie, goes on its own path for the most part. Director Curtis Hanson did do the Hitchcock-styled The Bedroom Window three years earlier, but in this movie he gives the movie a different style. He does give the movie a great deal of visual slickness, with expert photography (especially during the night sequences) and camera movements despite not having an especially high budget on his hands. As for the tone of the movie, it is also some distance from Hitchcock. While Hitchcock sometimes liked to build a strong feeling of terror, tension, or horror early on, Hanson on the other hand goes for a more low key style for the first half or so of the movie. Although this may not sound particularly exciting, it actually serves a great purpose. In the first part of the movie, the matter of fact feeling actually gives a little explanation as to why the character of Michael gets entangled with Alex. If there had been a feeling of any kind of danger in the air, it wouldn't have been very convincing to see Michael let his defenses down and have Alex slowly but surely get very deep into his life. Another purpose the soft feel the first half of the movie has is to make the second half of the movie - where Michael eventually finds himself in great trouble - more horrifying. When suddenly really bad things start to happen, we in the audience aren't quite prepared for it. It's scarier than had the movie been this way right from the start.

When things really start to get bad for Michael, director Hanson certainly does not glamorize the violence. For example, when Alex gets Michael drunk so that they can go on a robbery spree, Hanson during their first robbery at a diner focuses in on the short order cook crying and pleading for his life. The clear message we get is that real life crime and violence is not fun at all. Yet at the same time, we cannot help but watch because we want to see what will happen to these characters. It certainly helped Hanson that he had a pretty solid script to work with, written by David Koepp (Panic Room). Koepp starts the movie off well, setting up Michael and his predicaments and then meeting Alex before the first ten minutes of the movie have passed. Koepp then for the next forty or so minutes develops the situation slowly but surely, planting little asides here and there that suggest that the somewhat naive Michael does not realize that Alex is not quite the savior that he seems to be. For example, someone in passing at one point calls Alex "Tony", but Michael does not question it too heavily. We quickly get the sense that maybe Michael does not want to discover that his idol may not be the ideal companion. When things do eventually get really bad for Michael, the screenplay doesn't give Michael an easy way out. One character sums up the situation by saying, "Get in bed with the devil, sooner or later you have to f**k." Though Michael does eventually start to fight back, to Koepp's credit he does not arrange for the situation to be resolved with a violent fight or some other quick and very familiar cinematic solution. Instead, Koepp forces Michael to use his brains, and what we subsequently see shows - and in a believable way - that Michael may not be the total pushover that Alex thinks he is.

The characters and the actors who play them in Bad Influence are equally memorable. If there is a weakness, it is that Koepp's screenplay doesn't really give us quite enough time showing the characters of Michael and Alex having real in depth conversations about themselves. I do realize that doing so might have made the movie too long and drawn out, so maybe not doing this was an inevitable necessary evil. As it is, it feels a little strange that Michael would invite Alex deep into his life so quickly. Still, Alex gets to show some signs that he knows people very well, like when he tells Michael, "That's the way it works and he knows it" about Michael's workplace bully. In scenes such as that one, actor Lowe especially shines, speaking his words in a way that show confidence and intelligence... though clearly too much of both qualities for Spader's character's own good. Topped with a wicked grin, he soon becomes quite a scary figure. It may be a bit hard to understand how Spader's character can't see this for a long time, but Spader's performance manages to convince us his character is a kind of an easy pushover. Michael's not a total wimp (he tries picking up women in bars more than once), but by Spader's facial expressions and meek tone you can believe the character needs a serious tune up for his self esteem. One other good performance comes from actor Christian Clemenson (CSI: Miami), who is solid as Michael's troubled brother. While Bad Influence won't make you forget Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers any time soon, as mentioned before, it doesn't really try to do so. It finds its own voice, and it manages to speak its own words in a competent and entertaining manner.

(Posted May 3, 2026)