After watching “Bitch Slap” it’s pretty obvious that the only reason it received half the attention that it did was because of the energetic production and the gorgeous women who star in it. The women are absolutely stunning particularly Julia Voth who is just mind blowingly sexy and pulls off her airhead character Trixie quite well. She can bitch slap me any day of the week. But not really. It has its heart in the right place with homages to the likes of Russ Meyer and Quentin Tarantino but in the center of everything this is really nothing more than a soft core Cinemax porno painted to look like a grindhouse throwback.
And while it does have its moments of sheer grindhouse bliss, overall it’s really very forgettable and absolutely frustrating. I mean for a movie that purports to be all about female independence and girl power, all it really does is treat its three female leads like types of eye candy who don’t have a brain to split between them. And the difference between Jacobson’s film and Meyer’s film is that he makes no bones about his movies being somewhat idiotic and utter fantasies while “Bitch Slap” desperately wants to convince us that it’s so much more than porn san the hardcore sex. How do you cast three amazingly beautiful women, insist on a lesbian love triangle, and include a lesbian sex scene and feature no nudity? What’s the logic there? While most of the movie does have an appeal in form of bosoms and butts, otherwise it’s all one big whodunit with a lack of motivation to keep going with it.
There’s also an endless supply of flashbacks that try to mimic the almost disjointed narrative of “Pulp Fiction” and “The Usual Suspects” but just becomes a really irritating device that Jacobson relies on to tell his story as if the movie is a puzzle he assumes audiences wants to put together. Confusingly enough he both under estimates his film and over estimates it thus making the entire charade tiresome. I tried to sit through it all and was almost compelled to shut it off three times. When I can watch three gorgeous women flashing their bodies and want to shut off the movie without even finishing it, that’s something of an accomplishment. The entire movie is directed like a music video with constant slow motion shots, endless close ups of the girls bodies and there’s even a blatant water fight that–surprise, surprise–is initiated with slow motion shots. I wanted something to watch other than busty women play fight.
I can’t believe I said that, but after the first ten minutes of slow motion quick cuts, I was anxiously awaiting a story and pretty much got nothing out of it other than a mystery that ends on a really very hokey nut started by a red herring in the first twenty minutes that’s supposed to throw us off but really doesn’t when you consider that at least one of these three women are not who they seem. And if that’s not enough there are three unusual cameos from Lucy Lawless, Kevin Sorbo, and Zoe Bell (blink and you may miss her) that are very out of place and serve no purpose but to get in good with the fan boys who actually used to watch “Xena” and “Hercules.” Aside from an occasional funny one-liner there’s really an abundance of awful dialogue (“Ram this in your clambake, bitch cakes!”) that I’m sure seemed hilarious on paper but translates poorly on-screen.
And while the bad dialogue would in itself ruin the experience, the acting is often piss poor and horrific, especially from the likes of America Olivo who, while absolutely gorgeous, is just over the top. When you get down to it, this movie is all flash and zero substance and I would really like to get more from Jacobson in the long run. He seems to have an eye for flash and action, but most of the movie is littered with bad green screen, and editing worthy of a Michael Bay film thus making it more suitable for background noise on a late night than an actual big event you can gather with your friends to watch. You know what? I appreciate the charisma behind the production, I always have a place in my heart for busty good looking women, but if it’s all the same to you I’ll stick to “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” for my fix of hot women kicking ass. At least Russ Meyer had some creativity.