This week in Netflix: 99

February 26, 2009 on 3:28 pm | In Movies, Netflix, Weak Attempt | No Comments

Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.

This week?

99

A college playboy needs just one more conquest to win a bet that he could sleep with 100 women before he graduates — but sealing the deal could be difficult with only hours to go and 99 babes roaming campus looking for revenge. Meanwhile, a classmate and recreational drug enthusiast risks forfeiting his inheritance unless he can steal back his tainted urine sample. Jereme Badger and Bobby Campo star in this comic romp from director Pete Guzzo.

Yes, this movie’s called “99″. And yes it has two conflicting plots about racing against time for you to focus on. And yes, it got less than 2 stars out of a possible 5. Happily, aside from student films and shorts, this is the highest rated of Pete Guzzo’s films on IMDB.com.

Neither plot is particularly intriguing, with the second one particularly sucking. I have always hated “race against time” movies and the race to deliver clean urine…well, that’s not getting my time. According to the IMDB plot synopsis, the “inheritance” is a bar. I don’t see a conflict of interest here, as many bartenders (and especially owners) couldn’t pass a drug test even if they replaced their plasma with Evian. But that’s our conflict, ladies and gents, and we’re stuck with it.

The person who left him the bar must not have known him very well, which begs the question: “WHY ARE YOU MAKING THIS MORE DIFFICULT THAN IT HAS TO BE?” The only times when people do retarded things like this is in movies. “I’ll give you all this money, but only if you…” There has to be a legal precedent where the lawyer just says, “You know what? Screw what the old bat wants. He’s dead and in an urn. Take what you want. You don’t have to do something dumb like finish college in 30 days or eat chicken every day for a year. Just take this sack of dough.”

The first plot is a smidge better, but watching an obviously uncaring, slutty womanizer get chased around campus by 99 women he seduced and abandoned is just sexist, mysogynistic, and boring. I’d be more apt to watch 10 minutes of that and then 50 minutes of him being tortured to death while listening to L7. And although I haven’t seen this film, I predict there’s at least one scene where he gets slapped by a girl. If it were an 80’s film, I’d also expect the main character to get hit in the crotch and have his eyes go crossed.

So I guess here’s the conflict. If the school is so small that a gang of 100 people can’t find one dude (and let’s face it, there’s always a place to hide on a college campus), he can’t seduce and potentially emotionally scar another college girl. We’re expected to side with this guy. “But…but…if he’s forced to hide, then he can’t keep doing the awful stuff he was doing before! And he loses a bet!”

My advice? You just had sex with 99 women over the course of 4 years. Unless you have the opportunity to win a solid gold unicorn that farts South Park DVDs while singing lost Beatles songs, forget the bet. You’ve already won.