Easily the worst movie of the 80s, but mesmerizing due to its incredible cast--excluding a twitching, geekish Craig Wasson--hopelessly marooned in a movie of so little depth, it might as well have taken place in a children's swimming pool. Too many artificial moments to name, all of them succeeding in characterizing its male characters as nothing less than lechs, dumbasses and brutes. But that doesn't stop director Peter Medak from indulging in scenes of squirm-inducing intimacy with the scumbags. Roy Scheider even engages in an unbelievable threesome with two prostitutes in front of a roomful of people, then later the trio dances to dixieland jazz(!). Blatant highlights of unintentional hilarity include Harvey Keitel telling Richard Jordan to shove coffee up his ass, a Treat Williams monologue about beating his date for eating his dessert in a restaurant, David Dukes chain-smoking and twitching non-stop for 90 minutes, and the movie's execrable soundtrack of some of the worst yuppie soft-jazz this side of a Dave Grusin concert series. When compared to similar, theatrical tales of male angst, the superior "Boys In The Band", "That Championship Season", or practically ANY Cassavetes film, this one stenches something awful.
Review of The Men's Club
