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by Frank Wilkins
Kevin is depressed because Ellie broke up with him, leaving him with his good friend Lucy. Jack is on the date from hell with Cindy. Val and Stephanie are searching the city desperately looking for the party. Monica is hosting the party and everyone's trying to get there, with transportation provided by a disco cabbie. Do you have tired head yet? Sound too much like a soap opera? The answers for me are yes and yes!

The plot of this movie can be described in detail by only a few words. Monica is throwing a 1981 New Year's Eve party, and her invited guests are trying to get there. That's it! Sure there is more to the movie, like the individual subplots between the pairings of characters that try to disguise themselves as character development. In a daisy-chain method of storytelling we learn about Eric (Brian McCardie), the Scottish artist who has been dumped twice in the last few months and the superstitious pair of Caitlyn (Angela Featherstone) and Bridget (Nichole Ari Parker), looking to shack up tonight lest they be cursed with the lack of dates for a whole year. We have Lucy, played very well by Courtney Love (although her looks were at their worst ever) sharing past romantic predilections with the misery-loves-company Kevin. Kate Hudson turns in a great performance as the klutzy Cindy, who lost her virginity to Jack (Jay Mohr), an arrogant actor, the night before. Christina Ricci also turns in a memorable performance as Val who, with Stephanie, (Gaby Hoffman) play gaudily over-dressed but under aged chicks with obnoxious Long Island accents. Meanwhile, Monica (Martha Plimpton), the neurotic hostess is at her East Village loft frantically obsessing over the fact that none of her guests have arrived for her party save for her fair-weather friend Hillary who leaves for better action. A disco cab driver played brilliantly by David Chapelle, who at one time or another carries each of the characters in his cab, is a kind of binding device that becomes the center of the story. Chapelle offers dating and relationship advice to most of the characters in a jive-talking manner that quite often kept me rolling on the floor. Small roles by Ben Affleck, Janeane Garafalo and a cameo by an unmentioned rock-star round out this edge-of-super-stardom cast.

200 Cigarettes is a great assemblage of young talent that falls a bit short in the originality score with none of the script breaking any new ground. As mentioned before, the story is told in a daisy-chain type fashion, cycling from one pairing to another, which is the only aspect of the film that kept it from becoming a total bore fest. At just about the point where the dialogue grows tiresome, the scene switches to a different relationship. In the end, 200 Cigarettes is not much more than a period-dressed sitcom that rips though the early 80s MTV hits touching on the mostly uninteresting intricacies of relationships of some random twentysomethings.

200 Cigarettes has an extremely high Julia Roberts factor due to the fact that it runs the gamut of emotions. This movie is written and directed by women and many of the issues addressed throughout the movie are women-only issues which subsequently gives it almost no macho factor. Cussing and sexual situations, although no nudity, make it off-limits for in-laws and children. An interesting cameo appearance and voice-over narration as the final credits roll give it a somewhat interesting ending thereby garnering it a 3 in the wrap-up factor.

Frank Wilkins

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Screen formats: Widescreen anamorphic

Subtitles: English (captions)

Sound: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (2.0 Surround)

Other Features: Color; region 1 encoding; interactive menus; scene access.



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Complete Cast:

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