The Devil and Max Devlin (1981)

Bill Cosby is the devil. And he also plays him in this movie.

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Low-hanging fruit? Oh, yeah. But come on, I defy you to even look at this movie poster without going “brr.” The reveal of Cosby’s horrific crimes, and how long they went unnoticed, is going to make this a really, really awkward watch. I mean, I’ll try to separate the art from the artist as much as I can but it is not going to be easy with that taste in my mouth. It doesn’t help that this movie started life as a Hammer horror film featuring Vincent Price collecting children’s souls for the Devil. And oh my God I haven’t even watched the movie we got but that would have been SO MUCH BETTER. Can I live in the universe where that happened instead?

Tragically, things didn’t work out in this universe and the producer sold the rights to Disney because they were doing so well around this point. They brought Mary Rogers to rework the script because she wrote the book and the script for one of Disney’s biggest and only hits of the 70s, Freaky Friday. In the director’s seat, we had Steven Hillard Stern, best known for his work on the next year’s infamous Mazes and Monsters. That’s right, the guy who used Tom Hanks to warn the world that Dungeons & Dragons turns you into a deranged murderous cultist is directing a movie about Hell. What could possibly go wrong? Shockingly, a lot. It bombed at the box office and was heavily criticized for its boring script and bland acting. As usual with Disney’s attempts to be modern and edgy, people started clutching their pearls and crying that Walt would never depict Hell in one of his movies.

Yeah, I can think of at least four times Disney depicted Hell while Walt was alive. Dunno what that was about. But that’s the least of this movie’s issues. The biggest issue is having Bill Cosby instead of Vincent Price. First of all, he’s a scumbag who deserves to rot in jail for what he did to those women and second of all we could have had Vincent Price. Sigh.

STORY

Max Devlin gets out of his car and goes to work just like any other day. The residents of the apartments he manages aren’t too happy with him. Because he’s a landlord. And landlords are the worst. However I will say that the writers could have tried a little harder here. It’s really not hard to paint a guy who squeezes people for the privilege of having a basic need met in a negative light, but all they show is him holding them to the terms of their lease. Have him evict somebody for being an hour late with rent or something. You want me to hate this guy, go full Scrooge, not “I have a pet in a pet-free rental how dare you”, you know? Anyway, one guy who hasn’t paid his rent runs for it, and Max gives chase. As he runs, he trips over an old woman’s cane and falls right in the middle of the street. And he’s run over by a bus and killed, the end.

Nah. I appreciate that this movie wastes absolutely zero time giving us what we came for. One second, Max’s feet are sticking out from under the bus like the Wicked Witch of the East, the next, he’s falling through the Hell scene from The Black Hole screaming all the way. When the smoke clears, he finds himself standing in… a boardroom? The manager introduces himself as Barney Satin (get it?) and introduces all the other unimportant suits around the room before detailing a list of Max’s heinous crimes dating all the way back to the fourth grade. Max protests that he’s not evil enough for Hell, but it turns out that the old lady he tripped over was an agent of Hell herself, and her decision is final. Max is sentenced to Level 4, which, in Dante’s Inferno is where souls are damned for greed and avarice. And however clumsily that avarice is established, I think that’s a nice touch!

There’s only one way out of Max’s sentence. If he gathers three souls to take his place, Hell will commute Max’s sentence. But not just any souls. Barney needs “fresh, unsullied innocence,” and WOW is that a super creepy thing to hear come out of Bill Cosby’s mouth. Lucky for Max, Hell has already picked out three perfect candidates, which the movie insists on referring to as little kids even though one’s a teenager and one’s in college at least. Max takes the bargain and one Faustian deal later he wakes up in a body bag alive and well to the astonishment of the gathered crowd.

After coming back from the dead Max really needs a coffee so he ducks into the local diner. Barney pops up across from him, but no one can see or hear him so everyone just thinks Max is crazy. Max laughing hysterically out of denial that anything that just happened was real probably doesn’t help. As he’s kicked out, he catches a glimpse of himself in the big mirror by the entrance. There’s no reflection! Apparently, it’s because he’s a creature of Hell now. Uh… sure. Max starts yelling at God, but Barney has the good sense to take this somewhere a little less public. Like a phone booth. No one questions people having one-sided conversations in a phone booth. Barney hands over the contracts his marks need to sign and shows him how to use his demonic powers to spy on his targets, then teleport to them.

His first attempt works, but not quite how Max intended. He lands in the ladies’ room at a club, where two girls are preparing for open mic night. Stella Summers is incredibly nervous, but her girlfriend Heidi is doing her best to encourage her. And yeah, these two are girlfriends, I don’t make the rules. Max even calls her her girlfriend at one point later. Good for them. Both of them are horrified to see a man walk in, though he quickly heads out stammering apologies. Once he’s safe in his apartment, Barney gives him some pointers on teleporting correctly and walks him through his other new powers. He can grant wishes now, as long as his victim can see him. Then they get to live happy, successful lives after which Barney gets their souls. And not before. Really for real.

Max teleports backstage to the club to apologize for the bathroom incident and give Stella some encouragement. She dedicates her song to kids who aren’t fortunate enough to have parents who support them. The music starts… and Stella freezes. The crowd boos. Stella meets Max’s eyes, ready to flee… then suddenly starts belting like a superstar! The crowd goes wild! She’s so good she attracted the attention of a record producer named Jerry Nadler in the audience, who offers her the opportunity to lay down some tracks! She invites Max, who she names her manager, and Heidi, who introduces herself as a groupie. And okay, that word has some very specific connotations.

One down! Mark number two is a nerdy teenager named Nelson Nordlinger. He dreams of becoming a motocross superstar because 1981, so the next day Max drives up to his high school in a car decorated with cardboard cutouts declaring “Max’s Mobile Motocross School.” It’s totally not suspicious at all. Nelson longs to try out but no one thinks he’s good enough because he’s just too nerdy. Max asks him how bad he wants to learn so Nelson hops in the car and lets this strange man drive him out to the middle of nowhere. What could possibly go wrong?

As soon as Nelson hops on the bike “Miracle Max” got God knows where, he’s a natural! Imagine that! As he rides around, Barney reminds us that Max has to see Nelson for the magic to work. Sure enough, Nelson gets too far away and biffs it right in front of another racer named Big Billy Hunniker. He’s only mostly dead and there’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive, so he introduces himself as “Nerve” Nordlinger to make himself sound cooler in front of his idol. Big Billy can’t wait to race Nelson on a better piece of equipment. Max runs over to yell at Nelson for getting too far away, and if you think this is all sketchy, you are not prepared for what’s coming next.

You see, mark number three, Toby Hart, is the only little kid who is actually a little kid. He’s trying to buy tickets for the local carnival, but they won’t sell to an unaccompanied minor. Enter a strange man popping out of nowhere and introducing himself as Uncle Max to get this kid alone on a ride. Max absolutely insists on getting to know Toby, plying him with toys and candy and rides to find out what he wants most in the whole wide world. It’s a very long sequence and it gets weirder and more uncomfortable the longer it goes on. And the kicker is what Toby wants most in the whole world, bad enough to sell his soul for, is for Max to be his dad. Not to have a dad. But for Max, specifically, individually, to marry his mom and become his dad. Uh. What.

Toby brings the strange man he’s known for like six hours home where his mom Penny runs a backyard daycare. Penny has some reservations about this creep who’s been hanging around her son all day and warns Toby to stay away from the fair. Toby promises that Max is perfect for her because he’s a single adult man who loves kids so she should totally marry him on the spot. That’s even more of a red flag, and when Penny looks out the window he’s playing patty cake with all the kids, learning their names. It’s supposed to be sweet but this is a grown man with no connection to any of the kids just lurking around a daycare so Penny starts to call the cops. But before she can dial, Max is gone!

He got a premonition that Stella needed him, so it’s off to the recording booth. Nerves have gotten the better of her no less than 42 times in a row. Nadler has just about given up, but Max convinces him to give her one more try. And wow! She belts out a perfect take of the same song from earlier, leading into a montage of record sales and autograph signings. Flushed with his success, he calls up Penny, but she wants nothing to do with him. Max gets pushy and Toby is stupid, so she finally picks up to warn him to stay away from her. That sounds like the perfect segue for Max to tell her he loves her to me! Gag. Fortunately, Penny hangs up mid-sentence which is the correct response, but does not call the police or file a restraining order which is not.

Back to Stella! It’s the launch party of her new album, and Max leads this little nobody from Topanga Canyon through Hollywood’s finest. He asks where Heidi is, which is where he calls her Stella’s girlfriend and even though the movie probably means it in the bougie white people way no it doesn’t. Stella goes on a mostly unprompted rant about Heidi’s overly strict parents and she’s totally not projecting. Max jokes that she’d probably sell her soul to live the Hollywood life and whips out her contract, but she flounces off to chat with Nadler. Barney pops up, reminding Max that the clock is ticking and even though he’s really close with Stella, progress is slow with the other two so he’d better hurry it up.

Hey, remember Nelson? Because the movie didn’t. But he’s back for his first big motocross rally in front of real talent scouts. Max climbs to the top of an RV so he can watch Nelson go vroom, and some kids from Nelson’s class who were bullying him wonder who that mysterious new challenge is who’s tearing up the track? They’re shocked to see the nerd they’ve been picking on under the helmet and run up to congratulate him like he’s been cool all along. The thing about nerds is they’re smart and Nelson picks up on the fact that something shady’s going on. But Max isn’t talking.

Back with the Harts (god this movie is disjointed), Max finds Penny playing tennis with her other suitor Larry and his obscenely tiny shorts. Oh, the 80s. Toby explains that Larry is boring, and the only dad for him is the shady guy who keeps appearing and disappearing who he’s known for twelve hours that his mom doesn’t like. Max hatches a scheme to endear himself to Penny, enlisting Toby to get her out of the house while he hires men to lay down grass on her dirt yard and replace all the playground equipment with shiny new toys. She immediately melts and lets Max take her out to dinner, where he rants about his two demanding management gigs and how he’s the best landlord ever who his tenants treat unfairly because he doesn’t want a bunch of snot-nosed brats running around. But this is endearing somehow, and we montage into Max spending time with the Harts and the daycare kids. By the end, Max and Penny have fallen in love for real.

Stella’s career is really taking off, and Nadler ushers her to the stage with help from another record bigwig (Ronnie Schell, voice of The Cat From Outer Space). She’s a little bummed out because Heidi couldn’t make it again and she needs her for companionship which yes that is the exact word they used I am not making this up. The bigger problem is that Max isn’t here and she can’t sing without him oh wait no there he is. She belts out yet another rendition of the same song as Max looks on from the audience with his arm around Penny. And I mean it’s a fine song, but if you’re going to write a story about a famous singer maybe write more than one song instead of using the same one a thousand times?

Whatever. Max boards a plane to follow Stella’s tour bus around North America because she’s a big celebrity now. Penny gives him a kiss for luck and an electric shaver as a goodbye present because he’s been running around with toilet-paper-blotted shaving cuts this entire movie. It’s the weirdest way of reminding us he can’t see in the mirror. I guess they didn’t want to pay for the special effects to erase him from mirrors the whole movie or something. Max has to pop off the plane mid-flight to tend to Nelson at one point, to the astonishment of the guy next to him, but soon it’s back to Stella and her sea of screaming fans. But when she’s alone in her hotel room, the homesickness sets in. Fame and fortune just aren’t all they’re cracked up to be without Heidi there.

During yet another performance of the same song, Barney catches Max’s eye and suggests dropping a sandbag on Nadler’s head because reasons. Horrified, Max pushes Nadler out of the way and ends up getting screamed at for his trouble. Some people. Confident Stella’s doing fine, Max rushes into the bathroom to tell Barney off in private. Unfortunately, he bursts in on another man doing his business in a stall with the door open. And my jaw fell on the floor when this Disney movie made a joke about how they’re all in show business here in this grungy men’s room. That’s a crack I’d expect from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, not a Disney movie! No wonder Touchstone is just around the corner, wow. Murder or no murder, the fact remains that a whole month has gone by and Max still doesn’t have a single signature on a contract. There’s only a month left and the clock is ticking, so he visits Stella in her dressing room to sign him on as her manager. But he’s been doing that for so long the point’s kind of moot so no signature for him.

So he finds Toby on the beach and tries to sweet talk a minor into signing a binding contract forking over all his worldly possessions and his soul in exchange for a dad. And Toby questions none of this. Well, okay, that’s not strictly true. He notices that there’s no mention of Max marrying Penny on there, and he refuses to sign anything until the wedding. Even Barney notes the kid’s savvy. Maybe Max will have better luck with Nelson? At least Nelson readily agrees to get his management contract ready, but to Max’s chagrin, he’s the kind of nerd who reads contracts before signing. He catches what he thinks is a typo that reads “soul arbiter” instead of “sole arbiter” and won’t sign until Max fixes it. So that was a bust.

Max supervises a daycare trip to the swimming pool, impressing Penny with his talent for dealing with kids. Unfortunately, he has to leave suddenly to help Stella, breaking Toby’s heart. He’s starting to have second thoughts about a stepdad who’s never around, which he should have thought about before bringing home a stranger he met at a carnival. Tough for him, because now Penny’s deeply, madly in love with Max. For… some reason.

Poor Stella looks out at the big empty theatre, thinking of how alone she is. All she wants is a taste of home, but when she calls home no one answers. She and Max have a heart-to-heart, and she reveals that her real name is Stephanie Pepper. She ran away from home in Brooklyn to California to pursue her music dreams because her strict parents wouldn’t let her. But they might have been onto something after all. Well, she’s miserable and vulnerable, so as Barney points out now would be the perfect time to get her to sign away her soul. Max just can’t bring himself to kick Stella while she’s down.

When the tour ends, Max makes a beeline for Toby to ask for his mother’s hand in marriage. Toby’s starting to have second thoughts about this whole thing because having a dad who’s never around might be worse than not having a dad at all. Penny reminds him that she decides who she marries, and she loves Max. For some reason. Feeling awful, Max leaves to head to the Grammys. Barney appears in the car next to him, saying he’s never been there and leaving the perfect set-up for record execs being evil or Satan in rock and roll music just lying on the ground. You can’t be a comedy if you don’t even try to be funny, movie, come on. It seems Max has the wedding, two motocross championships, and Stella’s big concert coming up on the day of his deadline, and not a single signature to be seen. But no pressure.

A sea of screaming fans greets Stella at the Grammys. One autograph seeker looks a whole lot like Max under the sunglasses and fake beard. I’m pretty sure disguising a binding contract as an autograph is some kind of illegal but it doesn’t void this one. A bell tolls, sealing Stella’s fate, and she flies into a panic attack, pushing the crowds away. She wins Best New Artist and gives a cold, dead-eyed acceptance speech about how no one helped her on her journey. Max’s jaw drops as he realizes what a horrible selfish person she’s become, but Barney is thrilled. And, okay, that is not the story I thought was being told here. I thought this was an “it’s lonely at the top” situation, not a “fame going to her head” situation. But okay. Sure. Whatever. One soul corrupted. Two to go.

It’s Nelson’s turn, and he’s probably the easiest of all. Max just rolls up with an updated contract taking “soul” responsibility for any accidents that happen on the track. Nelson criticizes his spelling again but that’s not enough to keep him from signing. That’s soul number 2 in the bag, but there’s no time to show him being corrupted. We move right along to Max’s wedding to Penny, where the bride’s wearing a stylish business skirt instead of a wedding gown because she’s a modern woman. The ceremony is filled with lots of extreme close-ups which I think is supposed to represent anxiety but mostly I just couldn’t get over how sweaty the pastor was so that was gross. He kisses the bride and now he’s officially Toby’s dad.

As agreed, Toby eagerly signs his soul away. The second he sets the pen down, a sense of dread settles over him. He runs away from his new stepdad to tell his mom something’s wrong. She never should have married Max. But of course, Penny doesn’t believe him and sends him off to join the celebrations because no one ever believes kids about these things. Barney reappears to congratulate Max on a job well done. Oh, and all three of them will be dead before midnight and he was lying about letting them live their normal lives. You can’t just tell us eighty minutes in that the entire premise of your movie’s ticking clock is a lie! That’s not how a narrative works! Rrgghgh. Elliot begs for their lives, especially Toby’s, and when that fails he runs off to burn the contracts. And then things get weird.

Barney whisks Max back to Hell and reveals his true demonic form, which consists of about a gallon of body paint, a Ronald McDonald wig, and furry shorts over red lace stockings. Choices were made. Choices. Were. Made. He starts screaming about eternal damnation and burning flesh like an evangelical street preacher which is really hard to take seriously. Max doesn’t care and burns the contracts anyway, damning his own soul to Hell in the process. Penny snaps him out of it and tries to bring him back to the party, but what’s the point when he’ll be dead by midnight? Without another word, he hollowly pulls the flower from his lapel and walks out on his new wife to say his last goodbyes.

He makes it to Nelson’s big race just in time to see Nelson laid up on a stretcher, in pretty good spirits all things considered. But he didn’t try to race without Max’s powers. He just tripped over an old lady’s cane and killed his racing career. That sounds familiar, so Max rushes over to confront the old lady. Sure enough, she’s not human, but she’s not a demon either. She’s an agent of Heaven, sent to protect Nelson. Knowing he’s in good hands, Max says his goodbyes, warning that they’ll never see each other again.

When he gets to her dressing room, Stella thanks Max for finding her parents so they can see her perform, which… wow, that would have been nice to actually see. He doesn’t even answer, just urges her to quit music before the concert even begins, because he can’t help her anymore. She doesn’t believe what he did for her was magic. He just gave her confidence, and she might actually be right. Either way, he shakes his head and leaves, wishing her all the best.

The final goodbye is the hardest of all. Apparently, Toby likes him again and trusts him to come back even though he’s given no evidence of that whatsoever. But there’s no coming back from dying. Penny can’t bear to hear all this fatalism, but he starts whining that he’s a terrible person who deserves what he’s about to get. She pulls him to the mirror so she can pull some cliched “see yourself the way I see you” schtick. To his shock, he can see himself! He won! He’s not going to Hell, he doesn’t have to leave his family! He’s so happy he starts jumping on the couch Tom Cruise style, rambling about Heaven and Hell and this is supposed to be our happy ending.

To celebrate, he takes the whole family to Stella’s farewell concert. They settle into the audience, alongside Stella’s parents, Heidi (remember her?) and for some reason, Nelson. She announces to everyone present that she’s taking a hiatus from music so she can go back to her life and her family. But it’s implied that it’s just a hiatus, and she’ll be back. To prove that she can come back, with or without magic, she finally, finally, finally busts out a different song! As the credits roll, Max raises his eyes to Heaven and mouths a soft ‘thank you’ for his second chance.

I’m very vocal about being deeply uncomfortable with religion-based stories. But this isn’t really that. Max is a bad person because he’s a bad person, not because of his lack of religious convictions. Heaven and Hell are just places. That said, wow this movie is bad. Having a serial sexual predator is the least of its problems. It presents elements of an afterlife story without ever really committing to them, and stumbles almost accidentally into the set-ups for jokes that could be effective without ever thinking to try. Worst of all, its three plotlines don’t work together in any kind of cohesive way, and only one of them is compelling. Nelson could be cut completely, and Toby’s is just deeply disturbing on several levels. They really, really should have stuck to Stella, because the idea of combining A Star Is Born with the tragedy of Faust is not actually a bad one. It’s just really poorly executed.

Also we could have had Vincent Price. And we don’t. And that’s terrible.

CHARACTERS

Max Devlin isn’t likable but not for the reasons the movie wants him to not be likable. We’re supposed to see him as a jerk with a heart of gold who learns to be a better person. He’s just so boring that it’s hard to hate or like him, which makes it hard to root for much of anything. Elliott Gould is phoning it in even harder here than in The Last Flight of Noah’s Ark, and that’s really saying something.

Barney Satin is pretty much the only thing anyone’s going to talk about if they’ve heard of this movie. It’s not surprising, given the revelations about how awful a person Bill Cosby is. The signs were all there even this far back. No one on set could stand working with him, and even some of the male cast were disgusted by his behavior towards the female members of the cast and crew. It makes his scenes where he’s lurking around Penny and Stella super icky to watch. The casting was meant to be ironic with his whole professional image being based around being “America’s Dad” but it turned out to be more accurate than anyone knew. But even if I could put all that out of my mind, he is awful in this. He delivers all his lines in a monotone that I think is supposed to be creepy but makes it feel like he’s talking in his sleep. Have I mentioned we could have had Vincent Price? Because that’s going to keep me up at night.

Stella Summers is by far the most interesting character in this movie. Like. By far. She has an actual arc, from a nobody with a girlfriend who loves her to a lonely superstar who learns that fame isn’t everything. Unfortunately, because they spend so much time begging us to care about the other two jokers, by the end it feels like we’re missing big parts of the movie. I want to see her reject Heidi! I want to see her fight with her parents! I want to see fame go to her head and her make the decision to go home! There are places to go here! I also appreciate them giving a lounge singer like Julie Budd a big break instead of going for celebrity casting. It gives an air of authenticity to the “nobody” part of her arc. She is a professional singer, known for a Sinatra cover band in New York, and she looks like Barbara Streisand, but it’s not as distracting as having the real Barbara Streisand in the movie.

Nerve Nordlinger does not need to be here. Literally, the only reason he is here is because it’s 1981. Picking on nerds is cool. Motocross is cool. Where do we go from there? No one knows, not even the writers. He’s the only one smart enough to read the contract, but not smart enough to not sign it. Every scene with him feels completely shoehorned. It’s particularly annoying because I was really excited to see one of the Moron twins from Splash on the cast list. They just give David Kidd nothing to do.

Toby Hart‘s plot is both dull and incredibly disturbing. Like, did no one teach this kid about stranger danger? A grown man you met at a carnival plying you with candy to tell him what you want most in the world isn’t father-figure behavior, that’s a reason to call the cops. And it just keeps getting worse. This is more the fault of the writers and Elliott Gould than Adam Rich (a beloved child star from Eight is Enough), but it is really hard to watch.

Penny Hart starts off as the one intelligent person in this movie and falls off hard. How do you go from “yes, I should call the police on this weird carny who’s trying to woo my son and is now lurking around a daycare” to falling madly in love with him? She talks a big game about being an independent woman who does whatever she wants, thanks, but she sure does get shunted around by Toby’s and Max’s whims. Also Susan Anspach and Elliott Gould have the chemistry of a wet blanket.

MUSIC

Buddy Baker’s been with us a long time. He’s given us some real gems like the scores for the Winnie the Pooh shorts and the Apple Dumpling Gang movies. He also gave us this. The score when it’s present feels like the cheesy stings you’d expect from a sitcom from twenty years before this was made. And that’s when it’s present. I’m trying to be better about taking notes for the music section but when there are large swaths of movie that are dead silent, it makes it really hard. It’s particularly weird because so much of this movie’s plot revolves around music. Speaking of…

Any Fool Could See is a lovely power ballad about the pain of unrequited love. And it is lovely! Cowritten by PEGOT winner Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line) and Allee Willis (The Color Purple, the theme song for Friends), I could easily see it on a pop album even though neither song from this movie actually charted. It’s actually a breath of fresh air after the absolutely terrible songs from Last Flight of Noah’s Ark and Herbie Goes Bananas. Unfortunately, they play it like six times throughout the movie. In full. Beginning to end. As nice as the song is, as well as Budd sings it, it gets really old and cheapens the idea of Stella being this incredible singing prodigy. And most of the only parts of the score that stand out are instrumental reprises of the same song. Just to twist the knife.

Roses and Rainbows finally lets us hear Stella let loose. And guys this song rules. It’s a lot more upbeat than Any Fool Could See, and even better, it’s all about independence and being your own person and reaching for your dreams instead of waiting for someone to give them to you. It’s an excellent way to end a movie about a Faustian bargain- she’s free of Max’s demonic powers and ready to sing on her own terms. Hamlish and his then-girlfriend Carol Baker Sager (Don’t Cry Out Loud, That’s What Friends Are For) pulled out a finale that’s far, far better than the rest of the film.

ARTISTRY

You can tell that the guy behind the 1966 Batman show, Howard Scwartz, was in charge of cinematography here. Like Batman, there are a lot of candy comic book colors that all end up washed out and bland because it’s lit so harshly. That works fine for a sitcom, but it’s really ugly on a film set. The only real stand-out visuals come from the Hell scene, and a sizable chunk of that is recycled footage from the end of The Black Hole. That’s not to say none of it was filmed fresh. There was a new set built for the boardroom and lace legging sequences that was so hot from the pyro and smoke machines that no one could stay there for more than a few minutes. That set is actually really cool looking, with freaky eyeball trees and spiraling rock formations, but we barely see it. 99% of the movie is dusty gray San Diego. So much wasted potential.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I hate it when a story with this much potential falls flat on its face. I love a good Faustian bargain story, and I was actually pretty invested in Stella’s story. But terrible performances across the board drag everything down, and two insufferably bland stories bloat the movie. The thing I expected to be the movie’s biggest downfall, the nauseating existence of a notorious predator in a prominent role, ended up being the icing on an absolutely rancid cake.

Favorite scene: Stella’s final performance because that song is a certified bop. Also the only other contender is the boardroom scene and I’m not giving Cosby that much credit.

Final rating: 3/10 There’s a good movie in here somewhere but it did not make it to the screen.