Studying hard represents traditional path to academic success, but the students are always finding various shortcuts to achieve the same aim. One of those shortcuts provides basis for the plot for The Curve a.k.a. Dead Man’s Curve, 1998 thriller comedy written and directed by Dan Rosen. Tim (played by Matthew Lillard) and Chris (played by Michael Vartan) are two college students who dream of enrolling into prestigious Harvard Medical School. Recently they learned about quick and simple way to improve their grades in a way that could make that dream possible. College policy automatically gives the best grades to students who have suffered great psychological trauma during semester and that trauma includes suicide of a room mate. Chris and Tim decide to kill their room mate Rand (played by Randall Batinkoff) and make it look like a suicide. The only problem is that Rand happens to be cheerful and immensely popular at the college and, therefore, very unlikely to take his own life. However, Rand’s public quarrel with pregnant girlfriend Natalie (played by Tamara Craig Thomas) gives them just the opportunity they need. They get Rand drunk, write a suicide note and drop his body into the river. Later, they have to deal not only with police investigation, but also with Natalie’s decision to follow her boyfriend and take her life. The investigation begins to point toward foul play, with Chris being most likely murder suspect. Things get even more complicated for Chris when he learns that his own girlfriend Emma (played by Keri Russell) begins fooling around with Tim.
The Curve was produced with low budget and had premiere on Sundance Film Festival. Most of the critics weren’t enthusiastic, seeing it as weak attempt to mix teen-oriented thrillers like Scream and Tarantinoesque black comedies. Lack of sympathies for film might be explained with Rosen’s attempts to paint his characters in worst possible light, showing a lot of misanthropy, like with his script for The Last Supper, another black comedy about murderous students. Rosen here builds a lot on the legacy of Heathers and shows members of Generation X as completely amoral or terminally stupid. Rosen also uses a lot of pop culture references that were very much in vogue during 1990s. What ultimately makes this watchable is very good cast. Matthew Lillard looks like he had a blast playing his delightfully sociopathic character and same can be said for Randall Batinkoff who plays his victim. Keri Russell, who was just about to reach her stardom as college student in Felicity, here plays very different character and takes part in a memorable scene that would be hard to reconcile with her later “good girl” image. Near the end The Curve begins to use too many annoying plot twists that makes it “trashy”, very much like Wild Things, although without that film’s levels of sex and nudity. On the other hand, The Curve maintains its darkly ironic atmosphere with the use of 1980s pop standards in soundtrack. The film, despite notable names in the cast, remained obscure but those viewers who stumble into it will probably receive pleasant surprise.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
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