There is nothing more satisfying in a movie where there's an unforeseen twist in the tale. It changes your outlook on what occurred before, and befuddles your brain as you try to make sense of the new state of affairs. It may even make you want to watch the film again, to see if this reinterpretation of the material adds to the viewing experience.

Breaking The Girls, a really REALLY dumb film attempts three such tasks... and fails miserably with each one. Rather than have you gasping with admiration for how the director manages the process, here you'll be shaking your head with disbelief as how desperate he is to put some pseudo intellectualism onto this mess. Sorry, dude. No matter how much whipped cream you add... a turd is still a turd.

This is, after all, a film that believes a girl who's been straight all her life can become a lesbian overnight because of a bad break-up and losing her job. I don't think it quite works like that. As for the whole 'swap murders' plot as first introduced in that Hitchcock classic Strangers On A Train, here you'd THINK it would perform the function of being the main plot... but NOPE.

Instead we are 'treated' to an alphabet soup of boring conversations, scenes that go nowhere and people doing something smart one minute, and incredibly dumb the next. ALL the focus seems to be on these stupid twists... Which don't work, and lead to more questions than answers. And besides, seeing as how we have zero emotional investment in these bland, no-dimensional characters, what difference would they make, anyway? 4/10

Sara studies law at some fancy school but is there on a scholarship. She works as a bartender at night. A guy in class is into her and she's into him but his girlfriend, Brooke, is the rich powerful and influential girl in class.

One night a girl named Alex shows up at the bar. She's into girls and makes it immediately clear to Sara. She's also rich, wild, spoiled, bored-with-everything. When Sara's shift is over, she agrees to drive the drunk Alex home. They make out a bit and later go to a party. It's some opening of a photographer's exhibition. Brooke is also there. And it turns out the photographer is Jaime who is Alex's step-mom. When her mom died, her step-dad hooked up with one of Alex's friends- Jaime.

Alex and Sara become closer. We learn about their past. Both of their mothers died. Alex's step-dad got all her mom's money. And while Alex doesn't have anything to worry about she hates him and Jamie. She confesses she would like Jaime out of the picture. And she offers to remove Sara's problem. Sara's problem is Brooke. Brooke noticed that Sara's into her guy so she had her fired, kicked out of her apartment and her scholarship taken away. Sara doesn't take Alex's offer seriously.

Next night, Alex actually kills Brooke and plants evidence that implicates Sara. Sara now is closer to the guy, Eric. Sara sees no way out and agrees to kill Jaime. When she gets there she finds Alex's step-dad stabbed and the cops arrive to find her in the middle of a scene setup to make her look guilty. The cops were already interested in Sara after Brooke died.

What follows is a series of surprises and twists which I won't reveal, as well as plans to make things right. Obviously at stake is all the money that Alex stands to get from her dead mother. When you think about things carefully, I suspect that the story doesn't work entirely. So much had to be planned and work perfectly, it's highly unlikely. Breaking the Girls is basically a somewhat more lesbian and less explicit version of Wild Things. The story is intriguing despite the plot holes; the movie is well directed and looks good. I would probably have hired someone other than Madeline Zima, but still, seeing the various girls make out is fun.

Parties, booze, back biting bad behaviour set at a school with a law program.

Sara (from the lower class) is on scholarship and works more than one job. She and Eric like one another. Brooke wants Eric to herself. Alex (from old money) is a lesbian Cassanova who wants Sara because she's straight and because she thinks Sara is vulnerable. Brooke (another privileged young woman) gets Sara fired from her job, which gets her scholarship revoked, and gets her kicked out of housing. Alex's step mom (real mom died in swimming pool) is five years older than Alex, and quite nasty to Alex (like don't visit home without calling first). The heat comes from Alex's father, though.

So, Brooke and Nina are the obvious targets. Sarah despises Brooke, and Alex despises Nina. So, Sara and Alex discuss this, but not really at any length.

Alex kills Brooke and frames Sara, then kills her father and frames Sara. Nice.

Were there important missing pieces that Sara needs to know about? Will Sara be able to extricate herself from the murder charges? Will everything we think we know be thrown out in the last three minutes?

------Scores-------

Cinematography: 8/10 Mostly fine; camera a bit wobbly now and then.

Sound: 8/10 OK.

Acting: 2/10 The only good acting I saw in this film came from Sam Anderson and John Stockwell; both performances were short. The other performances were between sub-par and bad. The relationship between Alex and Sara was not believable. Shawn Ashmore does better with a stronger director.

Screenplay: 4/10 Derivative and boring. For a bright person trained in the law, Sara navigates her situation very poorly. The exposition of motivation was not all that good, and the poor acting did not help. The turnaround in the plot at the end was a fairly nice touch in terms of plot, but was also yet another full-scale affirmation of corruption. There were so many in this film.