Movie Review: ‘Spring Breakers’

Director and provocateur Harmony Korine fools some of the people some of the time, but I see him as The Emperor in his boxers—shouting incoherently from the town square.

In “Spring Breakers,” that town square is a slice of beach along the Redneck Riviera, where college kids gather with beer bongs and condoms to throw down for a week of debauchery that would make the Playboy Mansion’s guests blanch. Sex and drugs and, well, not quite rock n roll—more like dub step and hip-hop.  It’s a loud, blurry party that blends one day into the next.

Enter four bikini clad girls, played by Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson  and Korine’s wife, Rachel Korine. They’ve just robbed a restaurant (using water pistols) to collect enough money to make the trip to the land of boobs and beer. We get only a brief glimpse into Selena Gomez’s character before the trip starts—she’s in the Christian club, a good girl, but with a longing to see the seedy side of life. As for the other characters, we know little and we will learn little, other than that they freely embrace their wild side, acting as Romans while in Rome. Not much happens for a long time—it’s like being the only sober person at the party—you don’t quite understand what’s so “fun” about it all. Surely, part of Korine’s message is just that; “look how pathetic and empty these kids are.”  But more often it seems that you can feel the presence of a leering director, getting his kicks behind the camera, pretending to condemn exploitation while also committing it.

James Franco, showing much more life than he did in Oz, bails the four girls out of jail (they’ve been locked up in the drunk tank overnight). No, he doesn’t know them, but when he sees his chance to save the day, he “springs” them from the slammer and becomes a kind of sugar daddy to them thereafter. Franco’s performance is a highlight…for a while. His metallic grillz on his teeth and baggy shorts help him get into character as a white-trash drug dealer—the kind of scuzzball who has “Scarface” playing on a continuous loop.

But even Franco’s well drawn character quickly grows tiresome for the same reason the rest of the film peters out—not much story, not much dialogue—and what dialogue there is just gets repeated, over and over. I swore to myself that if Franco’s character uttered the words, “Sprang Breaaaaak Fo-Evuh” just ONE MORE TIME, I would stab myself in the neck with a pencil. Although this is a threat I make frequently, I was serious. There’s another extended sequence where his character, holding his prized weapons in both hands, keeps repeating, “Look at my shit. Loook at myy shiiit.” Yes, we see it. Can we move on, homie?

“Spring Breakers” is a vague idea without a narrative. Only late in the proceedings does the film produce some tension, introducing a drug rivalry between Franco’s character and his former mentor. But it only goes in the most obvious direction.

Harmony Korine, like ‘The Emperor’ and most of the cast of the movie, has no clothes. Can we go back home now?