On the Doll (2007)

This movie basically tries to expose the "dark side" of the sex industry, but it does so in a decidedly PG-13 and completely (and at times laughably) implausible manner.There are three interweaving stories here. One involves a young adult sex abuse survivor named "Jizz" who works at a print sex magazine because he is trying to buy the freedom of a physically crippled childhood friend who works in a peep show booth. Even assuming there are any peep shows still around, it's pretty hard to believe that in Hollywood--a town full of struggling, adult actresses--they would have to resort to keeping a physically disabled sex slave, who never actually seems to take off her clothes. Anyway, "Jizz" gets together with another prostitute (Brittany Snow), who also never takes off her clothes and doesn't seem to have to do anything more degrading than tie up a john and punch him in the gonads. It's not COMPLETELY unbelievable that some pervert would pay a girl hundreds of dollars to tie him up and punch him in the nuts, but this idiot also happens to be a mob "bag man" who's carrying thousands of dollars with him at the time! Another story involves two "high school" girls who are both implausibly mature-looking and unbelievably naive and stupid. They get preyed upon by a ridiculously evil teacher (if this guy had a moustache he'd be twirling it). A real teacher these days would probably be fired for even having two students in his car, yet we're supposed to believe this guy can drive female students to porn shoots, masturbate in the street while they flash their panties, feed them drugs, and worse, yet they can't tell their parents, the cops, or their fricking school principal because "no one will believe" them. The only halfway believable story involves a young couple trying to save up money for marriage. She's another prostitute who apparently never has to take off her clothes or perform actual sex acts, and he's her pimp/driver. There's nothing wrong with condemning the modern-day sex industry; it's just that nothing in this film remotely resembles the REAL-LIFE modern day sex industry. And I know that having a lot of sex and nudity might have made this film kind of hypocritical given the dim view it takes on the sex trade, but it also might have made it slightly less boring and worthless. The PG-13 content is just one more element that serves to make this movie the steaming crock of laughable bullsh*t that it is.

A larded use of content considered taboo and shocking by the general populace with plenty of oddly written dialog coming at you wrapped in artistic pretension. On The Doll serves to exploit a serious issue. Pedophilia, molesters, right along side with their abused children are all here on the plate as entertainment. Though the editing is well executed its the opposite of being a '"star vehicle" for Brittany Snow. The other actors give us their best student like performances. Yes, this film is terrible but not in the fun way. The end leaves one wondering what is the exact personal problem(s)of writer/director Thomas Mignone to take such an interest here.

To start off with, I'm habitually bad at objectively rating movies. I know this, my wife knows this, and everyone around me knows this. I'm the kind of guy at the theater that likes a movie but can't explain why. If I like a movie, I like it 100% - and if I hated it, I'll recommend against people watching it."On the Doll" was the first movie I ever actually watched that I felt I could objectively rate and comment on without throwing some over-the-top rating to it. There's a LOT of reference to sex, but virtually no nudity. The theme is based around this post-high school, "grunge" style of direction that seems to be rampant amongst the college generation. In other words, the director tries to set the stage for the film on the backdrop of a sub-culture that many people are unaware of. He does this from three different angles: The Prostitute, The Teenagers, and the Hero.Now, from the premise of the movie - we were supposed to be inundated with life revolving around people who were sexually abused as young kids. Honestly - I found this part of the movie very lacking, and not that I wanted them to explore this verbatim, but I would have liked the back stories to go a bit more in depth. In the end, it left the idea of the movie and the characters stagnant at best. For saying this was the main premise of the movie - you don't really get a look into how they seem to feel about what happened to them. Book after book has been written on the subject from people who have been abused, and I think if you were going to use that as the focal point of a movie - you would, in the least, spend time going over the mental backlash that such atrocities would inflict on young minds.The director spent more time trying to play a catch and grab game with the audience - that in my opinion, failed miserably. There were certain characters you absolutely hate, others that you love and respect, and some you feel indifferent about. The fact is, if this movie could be rated as half-way decent, it's because of the acting.In the end, I think it's safe to say that the movie ended quite abruptly and didn't really seem to accomplish much. The character development was strong, and I feel like each story told a very different tale of life in the "sex lane" - but to elude that this movie in anyway represented victims of abuse is just a tag line to get people to watch it. This was a quaint drama with opposing forces mixed in that didn't really accomplish much of anything.I went into this expecting good things, but was left slightly dissatisfied and felt the presence of good, upcoming young actors was all that saved it from being horrid.4/10

I saw this movie without any expectations that it would be very good. I had not heard anything about it and it looked like a B-movie from the horror-genre. I was very surprised over how engaging it was and what a good job the director/writer had done. It captured me right away and I watched through it with a growing admiration for the story and the characters. The editing is also very good and the score is also well done.We see three different stories from the sex-industry that have something in common based on an unusual twist. We follow the main characters rather depressing life and their struggle to get something positive out of their situation. The story, which can be a bit confusing at first, clears up in the end with a surprising and moving climax. Too me, this movie tells something about how sometimes, when we think we can fix anything, you have to take a closer look to see that it is lost no matter what you do and that some souls are destined to go under as a consequence of the path their life has taken...This is a capturing drama from a part of our society that we see everyday, but don't want to know about...