Bomb Report
Title: Asking For It
Directed By: Eamon O’Rourke
Written By: Eamon O’Rourke
Release Date: June 13, 2021
Domestic Distributor: Saban Films
Cast: Kiersey Clemons, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexandra Shipp, Ezra Miller, Luke Hemsworth
Rated: R
Genre: Thriller
Box Office Information
- Budget: –
- Financed by: Redwire Pictures, Tunnel Post, Beer Money Worldwide, A Safe Way Forward, Jeff Rice Films, Lucky 13 Productions, LB Entertainment, Carte Blanche
- Domestic Box Office Gross: –
- International box office : –
Official Trailer
Synopsis
A small town waitress is molested while on a date. The man gets off scot-free.
So the waitress joins a band of female vigilantes who are dedicated to removing the chauvinistic macho from every man they run across. And, boy, do they play rough! By the end of the film the body count would daunt a PhD in algebra.
Anatomy of a flop, or when bad movies go badder
There’s nothing inherently wrong with scripting a film in which violated and abused women get to serve out a little rough justice to those who have wronged them. It’s a standard theme in westerns and film noir.
But this unfortunate film was apparently mishandled from conception to postproduction. To paraphrase just a few of the grenades lobed at it by critics:
“Asking for It is similar to a shoddy puppet performance; everyone in this room seems to be a two-dimensional paper cutout that is being pulled around by painfully evident strings and is serving as a speaker for the man who is standing just behind the curtain.”
“Asking for It is a remarkable bluff of both style and substance, produced with sloppy overconfidence and a lack of attention to detail.”
It should be noted that both of the above reviews were written by men.
Here’s what a women film critic said about the film (suitably paraphrased by Quillbot):
“In his debut as a director, Eamon O’Rourke hits a home run, producing a story that is both thought-provoking and action-packed, about women who are reclaiming their authority and control while also kicking butt and calling names.”
And so we come to the crux of the challenge this floperoo poses: Is the film bad all the way through, or is it a gender shibboleth? Men hate it, women love it. So it’s a chick flick?
There’s no doubt the film performed poorly at the box office. So poorly, in fact, that the financials for the film were never made public. That can only mean the banks and investors are too embarrassed to make public how much money the movie purloined from them.
Do good intentions make good movies?
And is the message of Asking for It something good, something praiseworthy, something besides trendy fluff?
Women terrorizing men. Because they deserve it. For their long and shameful history of female abuse. Patriarchal bullying. And so forth.
Well, the only way to settle this is to admit that matriarchy is what’s coming soon. And the sooner the better.
How do world leaders, men leaders, feel about it?
President Biden, of course, already has a woman vice president.
Vladimir Putin doesn’t even recognize that women exist. Nobody knows anything about any females in his immediate or distant family.
Xi Jinping, of China, mouths the party line – that men and women are equals in the struggle against the capitalist dogs slavering for their Communist blood. But women leaders in China are strictly lower echelon.
And so on and so forth.
The consensus seems to be that healthy active democracies, like the USA and Great Britain, are going to make the change from men to women leadership without much of a fuss. But more authoritarian governments are not going to welcome women into their upper management without bloodshed, maybe even warfare.
It just could be that this lousy movie is the final straw that breaks the camel’s back. While it has disappeared from movie theaters, that no longer means much when it comes to ultimate viewership. Because the film will be streaming and seen on DVD for a long time to come. And, like the little white grub in the apple barrel, it will grow and spread and infect far and wide. After all, the stars of the film, women such as Kiersey Clemons and Alexandra Shipp, are so drop dead gorgeous that their honeyed words and wanton body language will beguile the male masses into gladly giving up their rights and privileges. Becoming drones. Eunuchs. Bondsmen.
So beware, all you innocent men. This posting is no longer a movie review, but a warning to one and all that It’s All Going To Change. Be prepared. And make sure your insurance is paid up.
Release to Several Countries
Asking For It was released to a total of 16 countries internationally, with the main markets being Spain with no figures available, Germany, with no figures available, and Russia, with no figures available. Rankings were posted based on order of reporting.
