Cecil B DeMented **½ (2000, Melanie Griffith, Stephen Dorff, Alicia Witt, Adrian Grenier, Maggie Gyllenhall) – Classic Movie Review 4005

Writer-director John Waters’s suitably demented 2000 comedy stars Stephen Dorff as guerrilla film director Cecil B DeMented. As usual with Waters, it is set in his home town of Baltimore.

DeMented and his band of cinema revolutionaries kidnap an aging starlet called Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith) in the hope of making his newest production — a tirade against Hollywood values — a smash-hit at the box-office.

Waters’s outrageous black comedy is stronger on its attempt to shock than to raise laughs. And it is all surprisingly feeble and blunt as an attack on Hollywood. However, there are some amusing in-jokes, it motors successfully on dynamic rage, and it is well acted, especially by Griffith, though Dorff, Alicia Witt, Adrian Grenier and Maggie Gyllenhall are notable too.

Also in the cast are Waters regulars Rikki Lake, Patty Hearst and Mink Stole, as well as Larry Gilliard Jr, Jack Noseworthy, Michael Shannon, Kevin Nealon and Eric Barry.

It was landed with an 18 certificate for its strong crude sexual content, violence, language and drug use.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4005

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