Review: Wild Cherry (2009)

Director: Dana Lustig | 120 minutes | comedy | Actors: Rumer Willis, Tania Raymonde, Kristin Cavallari, Ryan Merriman, Jesse Moss, John White, Jeff Wahl, Joel Labelle, Tegan Moss, Tia Carrere, Bryan Clarke, Rob Schneider, Cory Wojcik, Curtis Moore, Ashley Mayberry

Where in “American Pie” you follow a male protagonist who is eager to lose his virginity, “Wild Cherry” is the female B-movie counterpart. Now it is the beautiful student Helen McNicol (Tania Raymonde) who has no experience whatsoever with sex. Her friends Trish (Kristin Cavallari) and Chase (Rumer Willis) are desperate for her to put her romantic prejudices overboard and take the big step. But when Helen finally wants to sleep with Stanford (Ryan Merriman), the trio make a discovery… All members of the football team appear to have agreed on a pact, which is recorded in a book. Each member must deflower a girl. Helen is flabbergasted and hurt. Together with Trish and Chase, she wants to thwart the boys and teach them a lesson. The three come up with a playful action to make it clear to Stanford and his buddies Skeets and Franklin that they can’t just mess around with girls. This one action turns out not to be enough, after which the ladies switch to heavier artillery where the entire football team has to believe it …

In addition to the main story above, “Wild Cherry” occasionally features excerpts from Chase’s documentary about college students talking about their first time. Sometimes the change is a bit abrupt, but nevertheless it creates a nice dynamic. The faces of Rob Schneider and Tania Raymonde are probably best known to the general public. Schneider is known for his absurd characters like Deuce Bigalow in the films of the same name and Jessica in “The Hot Chick.” The humor he delivers in “Wild Cherry” is quite a contrast to this. As Pa Nathan McNicol, Schneider seems more like a pause mode. His hyper behavior is totally missing here. His best moment is when he explains to his movie daughter about contraceptives.

Colleague Raymonde is better known as Alex from the successful TV series “Lost”. Where the actress plays a fairly resolute girl in “Lost”, in “Wild Cherry” as Helen she is very good and somewhat naive. Raymondes co-star Rumer Willis is – yes – the daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. She plays the most spunky and mischievous character in this film. Compared to Raymonde and Willis, Kim Cavallari (“Van Wilder: Freshman Year”) is somewhat insignificant. She has the handicap that the character Trish hangs a bit. Trish is modest and doesn’t have any crazy or strange excesses like Helen or Chase do. Actress Tia Carrere (TV series “Relic Hunter”) fulfills a funny intended supporting role as teacher Haumea who urges the girls in a chant to show “the power of the cat”.

The story of “Wild Cherry” is rather thin and quite banal. The only reason the film is still quite tolerable is because of Raymonde and Willis. Willis elicits a smile when Chase takes over the initiative very quickly when Franklin tries to hook up on her. And Raymonde knows how to portray Helen’s inexperience very humorously. The scene where this college student tries on a vibrator and then rushes to the kitchen for a carrot is hilarious. But the two cannot completely brush away the sheer amount of “Wild Cherry” jokes. The film simply doesn’t really manage to make you laugh out loud …