Intriguingly cast and quick out of the gate with the promise of sexy characters exercising depravity in the City of Angels, “Habit” loses steam early on in its 81 minute run time and never quite makes it across the goal line.
Bella Thorne plays Mads, an “L.A. Party Girl” who is hot, foul-mouthed, and always looking for the next adventure. Oh, and she also loves Jesus. A lot.
Joined by her two BFF’s, Evie ( Libby Mintz) and Addy (Andreja Pejic), Mads gets into trouble when she takes on a drug dealing gig from Eric a has-been Hollywood celeb (musician Gavin Rossdale is believable in his brief appearance).
An ill-advised one night stand leads to theft of all the money and drugs Mads and crew had. What will they do now? If you guessed that they will disguise themselves as nuns in order to hide out from the bad guys, congratulations, you have correctly interpreted the double-entendre title of this film.
First time director Janell Shirtcliff is going for a Tarantino-esque vibe here, and she succeeds, if you don’t count dialogue, casting, screenwriting, editing and other elements of filmmaking. What we have is a potentially interesting set-up with almost zero payoffs. The actresses seem to be in a home movie – like a Tik-Tok sketch that their friends will totally get. But what about the rest of us?
The “sexy” stuff lacks sexiness, the violent stuff isn’t violent enough (sorry, I like real Tarantino pretend violence) and the story takes a hoary premise and doesn’t do anything with it to keep us awake.
I will say that the film probably knows its audience better than I, and that that audience probably is Tik-Tokers, so it is absolutely possible that the short run time and superficial flash will land some fans among a very specific demographic.
It just wasn’t my thing.
1 out of 4 Stars
“Habit” is available to stream beginning Friday, August 20, 2021 and will be released to Blu-ray/DVD, Tuesday, August 24| Rated R for strong drug content, pervasive language, sexual content, some bloody violence, and brief nudity.
