The story centers around Blue Bay High School a community filled with the snobby, high-income elite. During a senior class lecture, all four of the central (but not necessarily the best) characters in the film materialize in one form or another at the lecture. First we have Sam Lombardo the guidance counselor (Matt Dillon), Ray Duquette the corrupt policeman (Kevin Bacon), Kelly Van Ryan the daughter of the wealthiest real estate mogul in town (Denise Richards), and Suzie Toller the girl from the caravan park across town (Neve Campbell). All four of these characters have large secrets they’d rather not share. Their façade begins to peel off when Lombardo, our sensitive and well liked guidance counselor, is accused of raping the rich girl Kelly Van Ryan. Her story is initially backed up by “trailer trash” Suzie Toller, but then things get a little out of the ordinary. Enter Bill Murray in one of the (if not best in my opinion) cameos ever who is Ken Bowden, Sam Lombardo’s lawyer. Murray manages to show the court that things are not as clear cut as they initially appeared. He gets Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell) to recant her testimony on the stand and admit the rape accusation was a lie. Why? Well we have to wait and see to learn the full story.
Along with Murray is another lawyer-cameo played by Robert Wagner, acting as the wealthy Van Ryan’s family attorney. The Van Ryan’s are humiliated by the scandal, and Lombardo and Bowden negotiate a hefty settlement: 8.5 million dollars. Lombardo leaves town to retire after this, and encounters Kelly and Suzie at his hotel. It turns out that the three of them had been working together the entire time, and planned to split the money.
However more unexpected twists are revealed at the end through a series of flashbacks, that Suzie had planned the whole thing in order to get all the money and not just a third (as well as the revenge on Duquette for killing her love years before) she was also a very, very smart woman. Other characters begin to die off as the movie comes closer and closer to the end. In the final scene, Bowden (Murray) meets Suzie at a tropical resort, and gives her most of the money—minus his “usual fee”—and tells her to “be good.”
Overall, however, you can’t really go wrong with this film for an evening’s entertainment. It doesn’t feel the need to talk down at its audience, it doesn’t resort to excess simplicity to make itself understood, and it just tells an unusual story and tells it convincingly well. I think that Wild Things was an excellent film and was not just some “dark porn,” as many of the media tried to portray it, rather a fantastic and “different” film that was quite entertaining.
J.P.'s I'm Outta Here Movie Thoughts 