Bad Movies We Love: S.F.W.

Fine vulpine Stephen Dorff is perfect in Sofia Coppola's new film Somewhere, so it's only right that we revisit his most shameful work for this week's Bad Movie We Love: 1994's S.F.W. No, it doesn't stand for "Safe for Work." Yes, it stands for something just as annoying.

Couple things: 1. I swear we'll evacuate the '90s soon. Problem is, those years are an arable BMWL meadow, and we're just starting to tap its terra firma. (We haven't even brought up Jean-Claude Van Damme yet. Or Robin Tunney! Or Sandra "BMWL BAMF" Bullock. So settle down, nephew.) 2. This movie is horrible. Loving it requires utmost condescension, a quality I only condone when the movie condescends to us first. And girl, does it try.

Let's unpack S.F.W.'s worst attribute (the entire plot!) first: Cliff Spab (Dorff) and his buddy Joe (Not Important) visit a liquor store one night and -- whoops -- terrorists force them and three others into a basement where Patty Hearst antics commence immediately. For over a month, Cliff, Joe, and a nervous teen named Wendy (Reese Witherspoon!) deal with masked gunmen who film them nonstop. These terrorists have forced TV networks to broadcast their footage live for weeks on end, an occurrence that turns the detained Gen X-ers into accidental TV-land heroes. Ratings prove they are even more compelling than Home Improvement and Randy's cancer. This is where credibility gets murky.

Soon, Cliff gets his hands on a gun and kills the terrorists, but amid the bloody upheaval, Joe ends up shot, then dead. After Cliff and Wendy escape, the town decides Cliff, who took a bullet in the shoulder, is the main hero because he was the most apathetic during detainment. More importantly, the home viewers really dig the slacker catchphrase he hollered at his captors: "So f*cking what!?" Yes, "S.F.W." stands for "So F*cking What?" It's the new "I'm a Loser, Baby, So Why Don't You Kill Me?" or "Talk to the Hand" or "I Unfriended Your Mom," etc. Before you know it, "S.F.W." t-shirts, posters, bookmarks, Kangol hats, Pogs, and pantsuits crop up all over Cliff's neighborhood. He is a star -- albeit an apathetic one whose hair-flip is only matched by Christian Bale's in our beloved Newsies.

You see where this is going, right? The media, the town, and Cliff's loved ones seize on his fame, but he's over it. Over it! A horrible Sam Donaldson impersonator says on TV: "We hope to have Cliff as our guest as soon as he permits!" Cliff's dumbo, one-scene dad tells him, "All that stuff I said about you being a loser? Well, forget it!" The fast food joint where Cliff worked is even hawking a "Cliff Spab special" -- a 36-cent burger, one cent for each day of his detainment. Right. The only sensible person in sight is Cliff, and because this movie is clearly written by a condescending Baby Boomer who thinks Gen X is full of indifferent ciphers, we're full of contempt for Cliff too.

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