I am not having a good movie week, lol. But at least this one makes me feel better for any upset caused by my Pirates 3 review. Because this is a Drew Barrymore movie, which is usually worth about 2 stars by default before I even push play. But wow – this one is embarrassingly, cringingly bad, and it only gets worse as it runs. The set-up begins with penpals …

Yes, yes. Guns bad. But if you’re a sexy young movie star, you look mighty sexier holding one. I love how many of these old “just say no” type movies actually end up making the bad no-no thing look unbelievably, irresistibly, cool, lol. Drew Barrymore is always great to look at, but this is one of those movies from the time where you find yourself watching her very basic, any teen will do, style of acting, and thinking: how the hell did she ever get as good as she is now? lol. It doesn’t help that it’s yet another one of her “Amy Fisher” type roles – like, again … how did she ever escape that typecasting, it seemed like an indelible curse.

Personally, I’d rather watch any given other Drew movie – literally, I think any of them – the old movie of the same title from the 50s (no relation in story – they put a space in between the words too, presumably because it was the 50s and they were cool enough without spelling aids – I think it was called “Deadly is the Female” in some places), and that episode from “Blossom” that dealt with guns and teens (if I remember correctly, lol: I could’ve dreamt it, I don’t know, but it was very good I think).

Is there anything I liked except for the aesthetics of Drew? Well I loved the credit at the beginning, “And Michael Ironside as Mr. Kincaid” LOL … sorry, I have no idea why that makes me laugh so much, it just seems so much like the early-90s in a nutshell somehow to me or something. Billy Drago’s quite fantastically scary as the fire and brimstone preacher who makes the genius decision of marrying Drew, his ward, to an ex-con, even 2 minutes after berating them for laying together half-naked outside surrounded by guns.

But the moment this dangerous couple’s reign of terror begins, it becomes one of the most unintentionally funny movies I have ever seen – from the double accidental shooting that starts the whole thing, to a cop-killing, to the crashing into the mailbox to avoid the essential doggy, to their abysmal bar robbery (“That’s my whole paycheck! If you take that, I won’t be able to eat, pay rent …” “I can’t take the money, Howard!” “Well don’t use my name!” ROFL), and the OH-so-subtle foreshadowing of the line, “Cross my heart and hope to die!” … I don’t think I’ve ever shaken my head in disbelief so much at a movie, lol.

But Ironside is good – in fact, really good in a role quite far removed ultimately from his usual hardness – Drago is good, Barrymore is cute enough, and there’s at least one really nice shot, a POV of a victim being buried, through which we witness one of the couple’s romantic interludes. But none of this brings it even close even to the usual default Drewsome twosome of stars. And I’m not just being nice to the Pirates. This one really sucks too. It’s frankly amazing things like True Romance and Natural Born Killers ever got made with stuff like this leading the way, lol. This movie actually made me want to shoot something.