'Bad Cupid': Indie Film Review
Some automatically feel pressured about finding someone, anyone, before a particular manufactured corporate love day. Or, one may, in fact, be an actual romantic. Whatever category fits, Valentine’s Day’s mascot, Cupid, will do anything and everything to help his mortal charges find love.
The film Bad Cupid opens with a world-weary fellow with a red baseball bat looking out over Niagara Falls. He overhears and then interrupts a marriage proposal in progress. He takes the ring box from the man (named Jared) and bats it into the waterfall without any introduction or explanation. Jared is nonplussed; the ring cost him $10K. “Trust me, I’ve saved you a lot more than that,” says the man. He also tells the young lady she could do better. Upon quick reflection, she silently agrees.
The audacity of the older man continues as he opens the trunk of his bright red car. We are alarmed by the sight of a battered man in a tux inside it. The slightly deranged man pokes his hostage with the bat, making sure he’s alive. Thankfully, he is.
This macabre scene is our introduction to John Rhys-Davies’ authentically modern take on Cupid. There is no shirtless cherub in a cloth diaper here. Despite his seemingly maniacal countenance, Cupid is still love’s champion. He will not see it tarnished with half-hearted attempts at happiness.
We flash back to one year earlier and meet Dave and his girlfriend, Denise. He does not see the train wreck we all know is coming because his infatuation for her blinds him to the obvious. She is clearly not happy with him. As we suspected, she dumps him right then and there. We return to the present day and find Dave still hopelessly in love with Denise a full year after their breakup.
While Dave is a likable character, everyone around him is just as fascinating. They all have different takes on love. The elderly customer at his part-time job, Mrs. Fishbaum, is a widow. She misses her husband but is profoundly lonely. We also meet his boisterous cousin, Morris. She is his best friend. She cannot understand why Dave is stuck on Denise. Most of her relationships are of the one-date wonder variety.
Morris tries to help Dave move forward with several extreme measures. She even takes him to Las Vegas. While there, he connects with someone who happens to also be from Buffalo. But he still has his heart set on Denise.
We catch a glimpse of what Denise is doing while Dave pines away for her. However, we do not get enough time with Denise to understand her appeal. She does not seem like she’s worth the effort. All the while, Archie is doing his Cupid best to bring other people around the city together in the most self-entertaining way possible.
Until he comes across Dave’s particular dilemma, we do not realize just how far Archie/Cupid will go to fulfill his quest to help people fall in love.
Love is messy and unexpected; Archie ensures that it remains so. After all, if it is not earned, is it even worth it? Even when it seems like Archie makes mistakes, the outcome feels right. It is what was supposed to happen all along.
When folks tell us their meet-cute story, the outstanding ones come sprinkled with quirky pre-relationship connections discovered after the fact. There are clues riddled throughout Bad Cupid, making the end inevitable but also still unique. You will watch this film twice. While some might think of John Rhys-Davies as the Bad Santa of love, he is the Cupid we all need, especially after a year plus in isolation. If only we could all be so lucky!
