[I always love the opportunity to multitask on reviews. So here's one such chance, as this review serves any number of purposes: Firstly, it's a submission to Simply_Crispy's wonderfully conceived write-off featuring films that generally don't come up in profiles of the rich and famous, films that they'd just as soon forget. Certainly Tom Cruise hasn't mentioned Losin' It in any recent interviews that I've read, so this flick certainly fits the bill. But in addition, how many Tom Cruise movies are floating around Epinions unreviewed? This is it, I guess. So that's another plus. And finally, this Friday (November 8), Eminem makes his first major big screen splash in 8 Mile, a film that will get extra credibility because it was directed by Curtis Hanson. Critics will mention that Hanson is the talented director of LA Confidential and Wonder Boys, both of which are true, but they'll leave out that he also helmed Losin' It. So for Simply_Crispy, Tom Cruise, and Curtis Hanson... This one's for you!]

In 1981, when Losin' It was being filmed, Tom Cruise was a nobody. He was just another of The Outsiders because he hadn't realized that Risky Business would show him the true Color of Money. Back then, Tom Cruise probably thought that if he didn't show All The Right Moves on every picture, somebody would come play Taps for his career. Stardom must have seemed Far and Away for young Cruise, and he probably never dreamed that one day, he would be Top Gun. If you had told him, after one Cocktail too many, that one day he'd be a Legend, Cruise probably would have laughed and said, "What color's the Vanilla Sky in your world?" Even with a small part in a Francis Ford Coppola movie coming up, Cruise must have known that with a cast including Matt Dillon, C. Thomas Howell, and Ralph Macchio, he would just be one of A Few Good Men. No, fame certainly would have been the Minority Report for Mr. Cruise, whose economic potential would have been much better if he had quit acting and gone to law school and joined The Firm. But what started as a Mission Impossible led to two decades of nearly Endless Love. If you haven't seen most of Mr. Cruise's films, you must have had your Eyes Wide Shut for twenty years. But even if you think you've seen all of his movies, you're as lucky as a man Born on the Fourth of July because you've probably missed this one. Sure, it's horrible, but it's better than spending a day sitting out in the freezing Rain, Man.

[Sorry. I couldn't resist. That was fun.]

In early March of 1983, filmgoers could have been forgiven for not knowing who Tom Cruise was. At best, they'd have remembered him as the person from Taps who wasn't Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn, or George C. Scott. But in the space of six months, Cruise featured heavily in four major releases. In March there was The Outsiders, in late August Risky Business broke, and in September All the Right Moves confirmed that in less than a year, the former Thomas Mapother had gone from zero to hero. It still stands as a pretty amazing run. But in the middle of those critical and commercial successes, Tom Cruise also appeared in a teen sex farce called Losin' It. For a long time, it was tough to dig up copies of this horror show, but its DVD release and an endless rotation (heavily censored) on Comedy Central has given it much more visibility in recent years, much, I'd imagine, to Cruise's chagrin.

Like all great teen sex comedies (or at least like Porky's, the grandaddy of the genre), Losin' It was a Canadian production, the final film financed by recently disgraced Toronto-based Garth Drabinsky. Budgeted at a relatively high (for the genre) seven million dollars, there are some downright strange people involved behind the scenes of this movie. In fact, it's pretty clear that Cruise and Curtis Hanson (directing his third film) aren't the only people who skip this one on their CVs.

Losin' It was edited by Richard Halsey, who won an Oscar for his work on Rocky. He's a long way from an Oscar here. But more troubling is that
the cinematographer on Losin' It is Gilbert Taylor. In better days, Taylor shot for Hitchcock (Frenzy), Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove), Polanski (several times, including Repulsion), and Richard Donner (The Omen). But perhaps even more importantly, Gilbert Taylor shot Star Wars, for heaven's sake!

So surely if you put an actor with Cruise's resume, a director with Hanson's, and talented people at two of the most important technical positions there will be some sign of brilliance. Or at least a modicum of mediocrity. Nope. Losin' It makes Porky's look like Hamlet.

Losin' It begins with a title card that reads, "A Long Time Ago In A High School Not So Far Away..." I see no point in this reference to one of Gilbert Taylor's better films except that it means that the filmmakers of Losin' It never have to establish a consistant time period or location. It's sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s and the high school is probably in LA. But who really cares.

It's the story of three high school lads who head down to Tijuana for a crazy night. Ostensibly they're going because Tijuana is the "nastiest, raunchiest, most b*tchiest place in the whole world." But mostly they're going to get laid for the very first time with those world-renowned classy Mexican hookers. There's Woody (Cruise), whose name properly reflects his wooden demeanor. But to put it kindly, he's a nice guy who's gotten frustrated that his nice-girl girlfiend won't "go all the way" with him. There's Dave (Jack Earl Haley, showing all of the annoying traits of a progenitor to DJ Qualls), a geek who emulated Frank Sinatra and walks around with a sock in his jockeys. And then there's Spider (John Stockwell), the stud who's only along because he's never seen a burro (don't ask, I couldn't explain if I wanted to). The fourth member of their group is Dave's younger brother Wendell (John P. Navin Jr.). Wendell has no interest in getting laid, but as a young Capitalist, he wants to buy fireworks in Tijuana and sell them at a 300% mark-up.

The boys are joined before they get the border by Cathy (pre-Cheers Shelley Long, who may actually keep this one on her CV), the disgruntled wife of a grocery store manager. Cathy sees the boys as easy transportation to Tijuana, where she can get a quicky divorce.

And then they go to Mexico and hilarity ensues as the boys desperately try to get laid and the wander around the city on their own. Dave goes looking for Spanish fly and discovers that all Mexicans are dirty, violent crooks. Spider goes looking for his burro and ends up in jail where he discovers that all Mexicans are dirty, violent crooks. Woody spends time consoling Cathy, but no doubt they take the time to discover that all Mexicans are dirty, violent crooks.

That, I believe, is the lesson of Losin' It, that all Mexicans are dirty, violent crooks, but they have cheep prostitutes, so you have to deal with 'em. Anybody else seeing how this could be a tiny bit offensive? You have a bunch of non-Mexican actors playing Mexicans as corrupt and sleazy and a bunch of obnoxious, but still largely innocent American white boys being victimized. At one point Chuey (played by Argentinian Hector Alias) explains to Dave that Americans "come to Mexico to do things you wouldn't do in your own country." And he observes that the problems in Tijuana aren't caused by Mexicans, they're caused by Americans. This is the only logical section in the entire movie, but it's undermined because Chuey just happens to be dangling Dave from a crane and holding a blow-torch to his crotch. It's tough to accept the political message from anybody in that situation, however true it may be. Finally, Chuey is just another greasy Mexican picking on our heroes. At least he doesn't speak with painful and inexplicable Cuban accent affected by Henry Darrow as the most corrupt cop in the land.

But if you're worried that only the representation of Mexicans will bother you, women get no great shakes in Losin' It. The female characters in the movie cover all of the range from Shelley Long to a bunch of bloated prostitutes. And even Shelley Long, after a lecture to Woody about being a nice guy, goes to bed with him. So whatever. Say what you will about American Pie, but there was at least some effort made to teach the young men how to treat women. Spider learns nothing. Woody doesn't change and gets laid anyway. And Dave spends the entire film fantasizing about Spanish Fly as if it's some kind of date rape drug.

Where does the humor in this movie come from? The idea that Mexicans will screw you over ever chance they get. The idea that Spanish Fly once made a girl so horny she impaled herself on a car's gear shift. That prostitutes are sometimes old and with saggy breasts. That Mexicans don't speak English. That Mexicans try to sell Americans inferior goods at high prices. And that everybody keeps noticing the sock in Dave's crotch and telling him he's HUGE. If anybody of this sounds funny to you, please go out and rent this one. I assure you, though, that there's nothing beyond this. The script, by Bill L. Norton, is nearly as flat as his work on the sequel to American Graffiti.

As shown in the film, Tijuana is like the Disneyland ride The Pirates of the Caribbean. It's all neon-flashing sets full of debauchery and sin. The boys go from bar to bar and bordello to bordello. There are some hints of the poverty in the city surrounding the gooey evil center, but nobody besides the abusive Chuey even comments on it. Gilbert Taylor's cinematography mostly emphasizes how yellow the place is. How enlightening.

I actually watched Losin' It once and then watched it on fast forward a second time in the hopes of finding some hint of talent in Curtis Hanson's direction. I looked for some of the marvelous sense of style and cinematic framing seen in L.A. Confidential. Nowhere. Then I searched for the intimacy and sensitivity towards actors that he showed in Wonder Boys. But I couldn't find that either. Losin' It couldn't be any more sub-anonymous. Hanson followed this film by laying low for four years and coming back as the a quality hack thriller director with films like Bedroom Window, the underrated Bad Influence, and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. During that time, he seems to have learned how to make movies. He sure couldn't do anything here.

Most of the cast is awful. Haley, who was somewhat decent as Moocher in Breaking Away has a character whose annoying without any kind of redemptive emotional core. It's not his fault, but he's unwatchable. Long shows sitcom timing and almost negative sex-appeal. And Stockwell shows why it was for the best that he later became the director of decent films like Cheaters, fine films like crazy/beautiful, and bad films like Blue Crush.

And then there's Mr. Cruise. He's got top billing, but he certainly has less screentime than Haley. He also has, amazingly, no screen presence. Curtis Hanson makes no use of the Cruise smile or sense of humor and instead accentuates the wooden physicality that Cruise has mostly overcome these days. Seeing how uncharismatic Cruise is here should give hope to ciphers like Brad Renfroe and Chris Klein. If this version of Tom Cruise could mature into the Tom Cruise of Magnolia and Jerry Maguire, there's hope for anybody.

I assure you that I didn't go into Losin' It hoping for a masterpiece. I didn't even go in hoping for a Revenge of the Nerds 3: Nerds in Paradise. But what's on screen here, falls well below that. Well well below that.

Now I know, though, why Tom Cruise might try to have this expunged from his CV

*************
As I'm very partial to Simply_Crispy's write-off theme of choice, I may write another review or two for this one. Check out some of the other wonderful submissions by some of the best darned writers this site has to offer.

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