Spring Breakers (2012)

Spring Breakers is an experience meant to feel like a blur once you finish it. When I was a Senior in High School, it was the word-of-mouth film everyone was talking about. Some said it was amazing and some said it was the worst film ever made. But those who saw it then, in large multiplexes, sadly knew nothing of it's creator Harmony Korine. The Godfather of hardcore hipster cinema. Surreal art pictures like Gummo and Trash Humpers. If you know what you're getting, you'll understand Spring Breakers, and realize that this is actually his most commercial film to date. If you don't know that, you probably wont like it at all. The right word for this is polarizing.

Spring Breakers is intoxicatingly unpleasant. That's an oxymoron, but it's an apt description. Korine introduces us to these four girls. Right off the bat, you are repulsed by them. They come across as vapid seekers of cheap thrills, no matter how depraved and sadistic. Instead of getting money at the ATM, they arm rob a chicken restaurant. How sweet. Gomez plays the outlier of the group. A good Christian girl who sees nothing but trouble from the jump, and is the first to bail when things get real. Curiously, as Alien (James Franco) enters the scene, Gomez exists thereafter. We never see or hear from her again. I'll admit that this makes for shoddy character development, and at this point in his career, Korine should know better. But forget that. Just go with it.

Shots of sweaty bodies and beer guzzling occupy the frames of the wild parties these girls go to. Think of Project X, but artsier. At this point, we are introduced to Alien, played by James Franco. A low-life drug-dealer, small-time rapper and wealthy baddie, surrounded by cars, wads of cash and machine guns. He's a white trash train-wreck. Evidently, this may be James Franco's best onscreen role. At least until he played Tommy Wiseau, but does that even count as an original performance? He takes these girls under his wing, and trains them to be his personal hit squad.

Spring Breakers is what it is. A nonsensical film about sex, drugs, alcohol, guns and crime in sunny Florida. In some ways, it's a cautionary tale about getting caught up in the wrong crowd. In other ways, it's a midnight stoner flick. I can't say it's a great film, but I don't think it's bad either. Once you are sucked in to this world, it's hard to come back out of it, and you end up being seduced by it's vile nature.