D.E.B.S. (DVD)

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Indifferent to it
Story	Satisfactory
Characters / Performances	Satisfactory
Special Effects	Standard
Soundtrack	Average

Advantages:	Light, fluffy entertainment
Disadvantages:	Very contrived

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Amy Bradshaw (Sara Foster) is what’s known as the perfect score, meaning that she has all the perfect attributes to be a secret agent. To determine this, all students sit their SATS and hidden in them is a secret test measuring their ability to lie, cheat, fight and kill. Along with Max (Meagan Good), Dominique and Janet they make up the D.E.B.S (discipline, energy, beauty and strength).

When the D.E.B.S hear of an old nemesis’s return they are summoned by their boss (Michael Clarke Duncan) to hunt down master criminal Lucy Diamond (Jordana Brewster) and bring her to justice. While staking out a restaurant where they think Lucy Diamond will be, they stumble across her blind date with a Russian assassin, the Russian turns out to be a girl. When Lucy bumps into Amy she should have been killed because no one has ever fought Lucy Diamond and lived to tell about it… apart from Amy that is. The two girls get on well and after their first encounter Lucy peruses Amy until the two end up falling for each other. The only problem is, with the whole world out to kill Lucy and the D.E.B.S out looking for ‘kidnapped’ Amy their time together is limited before they inevitably get caught and have to face the music…

D.E.B.S is something that I had never heard of up until last night, I stayed at a friends house after a night out and her brother happened to have this on DVD so a group of us decided to watch it, quite drunk hoping for a good laugh. This is the second lesbian film I’ve seen now so I’m starting to think that maybe my boyfriend should be worried!

D.E.B.S is a low budget, lesbian, teen version of Charlie’s Angels and although in every aspect it was dreadful I actually quite enjoyed it and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not! This film is every straight teenage lads fantasy, it’s a group of four attractive school girls in the shortest plaid skirts you’ve ever seen, running upstairs with the camera following them carrying around guns and kissing other girls!

The film is very contrived and I could probably sit here all day and explain everything that made this ridiculous but there’s no point, this is one of those films that has to be seen to believed. It doesn’t hold up well to analysis as it’s a film that should be taken with a piece of salt. This film is purely for enjoyment purposes and should be seen as such, it’s not going to win any Oscars and it will always remain a low budget Charlie’s Angels rip-off that exploit’s the desires of spotty male teenage virgins but that doesn’t take anything away the fact that I strangely enjoyed it. It was a good way to spend 90 minutes at 3am whilst bordering on drunk! It’s not a film that I would want to see again but I imagine that someone of the opposing sexuality might like to watch this film more than once.

Given that this is such a low budget film I wasn’t expecting to recognise anybody but I actually recognised quite a few of the actors in the film. Jordana Brewster who appeared in The Fast And The Furious and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning plays one of the lead roles. I believe that she was solely hired for her enviable Megan Fox like looks that will make men everywhere fall in love with her, place this together with the fact that she’s playing a bad girl who happens to like girls and there’s the reason that pretty much all men will want to see this. I believe that if this film had a bit more publicity then it probably would have been a huge hit for that reason and that reason alone!

Sara Foster was someone that I didn’t recognise, she plays Amy Bradshaw, a goody goody with not even a hint of personality and given she plays the lead role this was a bit disappointing. Like her co-star I believe she was purely hired because of her looks, the fact that she’s blonde and prancing around in a school girl outfit that’s about two sizes too small for her is obviously another big draw for the male or infact lesbian audience to want to watch this. Her acting was pretty diabolical if I’m honest, there didn’t seem to be any chemistry between the two lead actors, I’m assuming they’re both straight so it must be hard to portray being in love with a woman but there were minimal sex scenes as the film is only rated a 12 therefore most of the scenes between the two were solely revolved around the two of them getting to know and each other and falling in love.

Meagan Good was another person I recognised after her appearances in Stomp The Yard, Saw 5 and Drag Me To Hell. She was no doubt the best female role as the tough talking Max who’s the leader of the D.E.B.S before her betrayal by Amy. She plays a supporting role but somehow manages to evoke more emotion than the two lead actors do put together. Even when Amy and Lucy are apart because their affair has been exposed you just don’t feel any angst from them whatsoever whereas Meagan Good portrays herself in a good light (no pun intended) and you can see the emotion coming from her concerning her best friend’s betrayal and denial.

What I did like about the film was the comedy aspect of it, this is probably one of the cheesiest films I’ve ever seen so if you don’t think you’ll like it, chances are you wont! I found myself quite enjoying it though, it was simply a nice bit of escapism for 90 minutes, it’s nice to sometimes watch a movie that doesn’t require any brain cells and limited concentration which was good considering my inebriated state. They use really predictable and cringe worthy humour in the film but some parts I found myself laughing at, there aren’t any laugh out loud moments but I did thoroughly enjoy the film despite all it’s many downsides.

For a made for TV movie I was actually really impressed with how much I liked this film, as I mentioned earlier it’s not something I’m likely to ever watch again but it was a nice relaxing 90 minutes where I could just sit back and watch this without feeling the need to sober up in order to follow everything that was going on! I can’t quite figure out whether this movie is made for kids or not, by kids I mean teenagers; it’s very cheesy and I found myself watching a big chunk of it through my fingers from sheer embarrassment. There was one part of the film where the girls are getting it on and Amy flicks Lucy’s bra strap by mistake, ok so granted she’s never slept with a girl before but I’m assuming she wears a bra herself therefore knows how to remove one! There were some other really embarrassing moments like where Lucy has decided to win Amy back and is miming whilst dancing along to the Wheatus song A Little Respect! This pretty much sums up how tacky this film is! I think part of this film is aimed at teenage boys and partly for lesbians, not fitting into either of those categories may be the reason why I didn’t enjoy this film to it’s full potential. However I don’t think this film can really be pegged, this isn’t going to be seen by a wide audience whether it be teenagers or not, this isn’t the type of film parents of young girls would want their daughters’ seeing, not just because of the lesbian content but because of the language too, they must say the S word about 50 times!

I’d recommend this film to the main viewing demographic, that being teenage boys, anyone over the age of 16 isn’t likely to enjoy this, I’m 19 and although I did enjoy it a big part of that reason could be put down to the fact that I was drunk at the time and would have been entertained by anything!

The DVD is available from play.com for £3.99.

The special features include:
Deleted scenes
Director's commentary
Cast commentary
D.E.B.S. animatic
'Infiltrating D.E.B.S.'- Making of Featurette
'Into The Morning' by the weekend- music video
Photo gallery