WHIPPED

US, 2000, 82 minutes, Colour.
Amanda Peet, Brian Van Holt, Jonathan Abrahams, Zorie Barber, Judah Domka.
Directed by Peter M. Cohen.

There is no major reason for seeing Whipped. There may be no minor reasons either.

This is one of those many films which focus on 20 somethings who think they are God’s gift to the earth and, especially, to women. As presented here, they are not particularly interesting or attractive characters. They meet each Sunday night at a restaurant to discuss their sexual exploits over the past week, many of them visualised as they go to clubs and try to exert their charm, overestimating the impact they have on the women. One of them is married – but is envious of the freedom of the other 3.

Each of them encounters an attractive young woman, played by Amanda Peet. It seems incredible to the audience that she would respond to each of the three, dating them, going out with them, discussions, sexual encounters. When each of them discovers what the others are doing, they go all out to persuade themselves, the others, and the woman that they are the man of her dreams. She continues with them, humiliating them without their realising it, and sowing dissension among the group.

When they fight amongst themselves, it is revealed that she and her girlfriends have overheard them boasting in the past and decide that they will take each of them down a peg, or even more. The whole thing has been set up and the women enjoy their humiliation of the men. And the men deserve it – and one hopes they will get a little more sense in their lives.

This has been a regular theme in a lot of the sex comedies, romantic comedies from the United States.A 2014 version, with a stronger-name cast, including Zac Efron, Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan and Imogen Poots was That Awkward Moment/ Are We Officially Dating?