Retro Film Review: 200 Cigarettes (1999)

(SPECIAL NOTE: Capsule version of the review is available here.)

The author of this review lives in a country where foreign films are subtitled. Since most of those films are from Hollywood, this reflects in English being spoken a notch better than in countries where foreign films get dubbed. Audiences have opportunity to pick certain words, phrases and accents and compare them with the text in subtitles. This subtitling at times can have effect on general impression of a film. One of examples of such phenomenon happened with 200 Cigarettes, 1999 comedy directed by Risa Bramon Garcia.

The plot of this film is set in New York during New Years Eve 1981. Many young people are going, or at least trying to go, to a party hosted by Monica (played by Martha Plimpton) and her best friend Hillary (played by Catherine Kellner). While frustrated Monica awaits that anyone shows up, many characters are falling in and out of love or at least try to experience some kind of romantic adventure during the night. Those events are often witnessed and commented by a cab driver (played by Dave Chappelle).

200 Cigarettes is a MTV production that tries to employ the formula that brought success to George Lucas with his American Grafitti - drama that takes place in one night and revolves around variety of different characters, period setting and plenty of period songs as soundtrack. This was the first directorial effort of Garcia, previously known as casting director, and it shows in the film. The humour in the film is lame, there are many anachronisms and Garcia fails to compensate the blandness of script. The only good thing about 200 Cigarettes, apart from its relatively short lenghth, is very good acting by some of the best young talents of late 1990s Hollywood. This is especially the case with Kate Hudson who, in her first role, clearly shows that she inherited comedic talent from her mother Goldie Hawn.

However, the most laughs the author of this review got from 200 Cigarettes didn't come from the film itself. The quality of translation was such that the words spoken had little to do with words in subtitles, thus creating many amusing moments and making sure that the name of translator becomes legendary among filmophiles in my country.

RATING: 3/10 (+)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on October 7th 2004)

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