Bad Cupid
Is it the trip or is it the destination? Is it the end or the means? Can an idea or a result be so purely beneficial on its own that it doesn’t matter how awful the acquiring of it was? Is true love so wonderful on its own it doesn’t matter how you came across it?
Bad Cupid is not asking these questions, it already has the answer and wants you to know it.
Which is how we get Archie (Rhys-Davies), a foul-tempered, foul-mouthed mean-spirited man who’s only two passions appear to be day drinking and ensuring that lonely individuals find their one true love. That includes the obsessed Dave (Nepyeu), who cannot get over the one who got away (Turturro). Well, not so much got away as dumped him hard for not being dramatic enough about his love. Even a trip to Vegas sponsored by his fun-loving cousin Morris (Marin) is enough to break him out of his funk. It does, however, get him crossing paths with Archie, Archie’s uncanny knowledge about his romance problems, the man Archie has bound and gagged in his trunk (Elder) and a ridiculously convoluted plan to get Denise back.
There’s a good movie in there somewhere, especially fans of the understated indie comedy. The film and its makers know it, too, which isn’t always a benefit. Every genre has its conventions and it’s easy to just accept them when they appeal to you, without asking whether those conventions are helping or hurting the final product.
Bad Cupid is a compilation of conventions from its hangdog to lead to his mercurial cousin trying to fix him and espouse their freedom loving ways. From there commence long dialogue scenes about the nature of relationships and love which primarily restate the same ideas over and over with little change until the moment comes when Dave must finally do something. Quirky characters come and go in between, mixing up the constant restatement of themes and hopefully their interesting enough on their own that they add some life to the film while they’re around.
It’s a style that has been around as long as independent film has and found its ne plus ultra in Kevin Smith’s seminal Clerks and plenty of people of tried to match it’s free flowing laughs and relationship drama that made it easy to forget just a few people and one location were all that were available, but mostly what has come out of it is repetition.
Beethoven’s theory of composing required both statement of theme and then development, nothing just staying the same in order to create a complete work. It seems like a simple observation when just stated that way but simplicity is usually the hallmark of mastery. But even as obvious as it is, it’s not followed through often enough.
There are spots of real humor in the script by Ira Fritz, Neal Howard and Anthony Piatek, but they are frequently buried in the unhurried delivery and pace of film that is too short to be so laid back. It only really comes alive when Archie appears.
Rhys-Davies carries Bad Cupid on his back not unlike Sisyphus carrying that boulder uphill every day and with roughly the same effect. Some of that is because Archie is the only character who genuinely gets to be proactive – Dave moans about his lot in life and does nothing and Morris moans about Dave doing nothing while doing nothing – and some of it is just Rhys-Davies native screen charisma which can pick up even weak material and make it seem lively. No one else is yet able to do that while also being saddled with bland roles.
The bottom line is none of these characters are likeable. The closest is the mean-spirited Cupid. It’s not that they’re unlikeable in a charming way, Its that they are controlled by their weaknesses without enough corresponding strengths to balance them. The question of whether bad or unlikeable people deserve love and how they find it probably could make a good movie, but that’s not what Bad Cupid is offering.
Bad Cupid isn’t bad but it’s not good enough to get by with what it does have to offer.
BAD CUPID SCORE: 5.5/10
Bad Cupid was directed by Diane Cossa and Neal Howard from a screenplay by Howard, Ira Fritz and Anthony Piatek. It stars John Rhys-Davies, Shane Nepveu, and Briana Marin.