User Reviews

I suppose Anton Kutcher must be handsome. He's tall and dark and every woman who approaches him seems to melt into some kind of amorphous plastic object that wobbles towards the nearest bed and begs him for commands.

He doesn't do a thing for me but his appearance, his pheromones, and the size of his apparatus seem to suit him well in La La Land. He puts everything he has into selling his looks and stamina to a rich lady like Anne Heche, who puts him up in her spacious modern flat overlooking the City of Angels. They sip expensive wine and nibble bonbons when they're not schtupping each other. Well, they have to do SOMETHING because the Kutcher character has the wit and sensitivity of a cucumber. He's recklessly selfish. His insights run along lines like these: "When a girl tells you you're not going to get anything, that's when you know you're going to get something." Heche returns home unexpectedly and finds him being serviced by a young blond wearing only a golden helmet while he watches Monday Night Football. I guess I ought to make it clear that although this is sometimes labeled a comedy, it's not. Heche tosses out all the fashionable clothes she's bought him, and then throws him out too.

This puts Kutcher on the street and he must hock a few of his more outrageous items from Prada in order to get along, while mooching off a male friend.

Then he runs into Margarita Levieva, a dark-eyed pretty thing who waits tables. She ignores his advances at first but he insinuates himself into her apartment, when he begins to put his usual moves on her. She insists he sleep on the couch so he doesn't get the wrong idea, but the light is no sooner out in her bedroom than he's creeping towards her in his skivvies complaining that the couch is too short, he's just going to slip in bed next to her, they're both adults, they can keep their hands off each other, and the baloney keeps grinding out, as in a factory. She agrees reluctantly. And I'm thinking, if she falls for this line, she's at least as stupid as he is. "I can feel you're smiling but I can't see it," he murmurs to her naked back. She rolls on her side and smiles openly at him. She's as stupid as he is.

Another conquest for Kutcher, whom I am, by this point, beginning not just to dislike but to hate with the kind of rubescent glow that only a hatred born of envy can generate.

I breathed a sigh of relief when Margarita turns out to have a rich fiancé back in New York. (He owns the Rangers.) She's not only as stupid as Kutcher but just as avaricious. But, now that the two poor people are in love, she flies back to New York to settle things with the wealthy fiancé who has been supporting her in Los Angeles. Kutcher finds he has trouble reaching her on the phone.

At this point, the story could have gone in one of two ways. (1) After several scenes of increasing tension, just when Kutcher is about to give up all hope, Margarita shows up, with an anxious smile, at his doorstep and they fall into each others' arms while a folk song about love swells up softly in the background. At that point, I would have walked out and sold my golden body to the nearest female bidder. OR (2) Margarita decides to stay in New York with Mister Right and Kutcher winds up sadder but wiser with a pedestrian job in Los Angeles.

The resolution lay behind Door Number Two, thank God. Yet, I still found it unsatisfactory in a way. Of course I was happy that Kutcher was able to reach Maslow's stage of self actualization. (He delivers groceries.) But real life in my experience doesn't work that way.

It's improbable that a man in his mid or late 20s who has been a shallow, self-interested sex fiend for all of his adult life is going to turn his entire character around because he's found someone as unprincipled as he is, and she's shown him what that looks like from the outside. He has a final exchange with Heche when he drops her groceries off. She asks how he's been. He smiles and says he's doing alright -- and he seems to MEAN it. It's a happy ending that sits on the film like a clown's cap on a performing seal. And as he drives his delivery truck away, there is a sappy love song on the sound track.

Kutcher's character is a dull man with no particular talent, intelligence, or sensibilities. He isn't evil. He's not even bad. He's simply empty except for his narcissism. He ought to be out there on the boardwalk in Venice, listening to rock on his Walkman, while doing capricious figures on roller skates. The best performances (and the best lines) are given to women, especially Anne Heche, who tells him in no uncertain terms where he stands on the life course. This movie could have been written by Tennessee Williams' ghost.

An American Gigolo for the 21st century, although without the '80's morality and sense of excess. Spread is a heavy handed and patently nasty ode to 21st century values of greed and excess. Demi Moore's toy boy Ashton Kutcher is perfectly cast here as Nikki, a handsome, vacuous, arrogant but impoverished stud who seduces wealthy, lonely older women and sponges off them while giving them an enjoyable sexual experience. He is currently sharing the lavish Hollywood Hills mansion of 40ish lawyer Samantha (Anne Heche). But while she is away on business he beds a number of younger more insatiable girls. But he remains emotionally detached, and never lets anyone get too close to him. That changes when he meets Heather (Margarita Levieva), a waitress who works in a coffee shop. But Heather is the female equivalent, coasting through life and living off the largesse of wealthy older men. But Heather is even more complicated than that. When Nikki falls hard for her it is a relationship that will change his life. Spread is an undeniably handsome-looking production, but it is rather vapid and empty. We've been through that younger man/older woman vibe too many times in the past (Shampoo, Sunset Boulevard, etc) to be seduced by the rather lacklustre version of the story served up here. Working with director David MacKenzie (Young Adam, etc), first time screenwriter Jason Hill serves up a morality tale in which the narcissistic young stud eventually gets his comeuppance. Kutcher may get by on his pretty boy looks but his performance is flat and he brings little depth to a character who is pretty shallow to begin with. There are oodles of flesh on display here, but the coldly staged sex scenes fail to generate much heat.

Spread is just basically a film where Ashton Kutcher gets to show-off and gets around to seeing a lot of pretty women fleshed and taking advantage of them. Its a sex comedy with enough sex and not enough comedy nor smarts to deliver. The movie sets its tone in the first few minutes with Ashton (Nikki) reading his first line while walking around. "I don't want to be arrogant, but I'm an incredibly attractive man," he informs by his dry narration – he ingratiates himself into the lives of rich older women to gain access to good clothes, fine food and luxurious living.

The film and its characters were very odd and weird. Nikki was very monotone and did what he wanted. Anne Heche (Samantha) was way generous towards Nikki, and it starts by their introduction. It seemed to fake and unrealistic. The film starts out rough in its first 30 mins then gets slightly better. The first half of the film is more of a sex-com with the adventures that Nikki takes involving Samantha. The 2nd half of the film involves Heather a waitress who Nikki eventually gets and stays with. This half becomes more of a rom-com and this is where the film goes downhill. In the second half, Samantha isn't in the film (except in the last 5 mins). The script and plot were just dumb and not great, the movie just falls apart and the film gets boring. Its a rather different Hollywood film.

Another thing with the film is that Kutcher's performance wasn't all that great and he wasn't really believable as the gigolo. Also the clothes he's showing wearing are pretty silly (colourfull clothes and suspenders) Lastly, the ending was actually pretty weird and depressing, though not much. The audience didn't really care much about him in the first place and the ending showed that. But it still have should ended better. The last few minutes ends with Nikki speaking and picking up a mouse and making his toad eat the mouse. It sets like that for the last 5 minutes until the screen went black, its pretty bizarre. But before that it showed that he didn't end up with neither girl (Heather or Samantha). The film has its moments but not many, and they should have added more comedy. It really isn't a funny film and I don't think it was really trying but the trailers showed it out to be a romantic comedy. The movie was pretty bad and could have been much better.

Nikki sets himself up with Samantha: he gets a place to live, food, and new clothes on his back; she gets his attentions.

He has a party while she's in New York on business. Then he betrays her at the party. The maid cleans up the party mess afterward. Seems the ability to think ahead is a bit impaired.

Samantha's reaction to her first discovery of Nikki's cheating was unexpected: she got more interested in him as they talked things out.

Soon after this he meets Heather at a coffee shop. She is very different than Samantha, and his interest in her (which arose from her lack of interest in him) eventually contributes to his breakup with Samantha.

During the second half of the film, Nikki makes a few lifestyle changes in response to the pain he feels over not possessing Heather. This all seems unlikely; Heather can do nothing for him, since she is a broke sponger just like he is. 'Jump the shark' comes to mind.

So, Nikki learns to bag groceries, do deliveries, and slows down on seductions. Oh, my. How long will that last, and why should it be interesting? The weakness in motivational development is perhaps the film's biggest downfall.

Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent.

Sound: 6/10 Someone with a more authentic voice might have been cast instead of Kutcher. His narration was repellent: not the content, but the qualities of his voice. I could not believe that he could convince anyone of anything. The music blares from time to time. When considered separately from the film, it was rather good. Within the film, it was next to irrelevant.

Acting: 2/10 Kutcher drags down the entire proceedings. The only actor in sight was Anne Heche, and her performance, though good, was not enough to carry this awful mess.

Screenplay: 0/10 Do I care about any of these characters? Samantha for about the first thirty minutes; after that, no one. Did I care how the film ended? No. If I were not writing this piece I would have stopped after perhaps ten minutes. Watching the whole 97 minutes showed that that would have been a good choice; the film was grinding and poor from beginning to end. Perhaps worst of all, this was a comedy during which I did not laugh or smile a single time.

I must have missed the boat somewhere.

In its opening moments, 'Spread' bills Ashton Kutcher as an object of uncontrollable lust - he quickly and effortlessly beds the affluent character portrayed by Anne Heche and then proceeds to make her his sugarmamma; in voice-over Kutcher play-by-plays the finer points of his pick-up artistry while screwing a bevy of other Los Angeles babes (many of whom he is able to bang without fear of any reprisal, inexplicably, from Heche, who is confusingly low on self esteem - more about that in a minute). I got lost quickly in terms of comprehending how or why Kutcher, who prances around throughout the film looking like a campy homosexual in suspenders and little earrings, is understood to be such a smouldering sex symbol, and moreover, that I am just going to buy into this conceit with a straight face. I doubt I was supposed to laugh out loud during several awkwardly explicit sex scenes that proudly advertise Kutcher's O-face, but I did anyway.

The victims of this bizarre Kutcher adonis appropriation are the women he encounters. All of the girls he seduces during the first half of the film, especially Heche, come off as pathetic, thoughtless tramps - if we can't buy what the flick is selling about Ashton, what does that say about the girls he nails? The first time Heche catches him 'cheating' on her, we expect the crappola to hit the fan; instead, she gets aroused and has sex with him. Seriously? Their relationship is played off at points as some kind of torrid affair, but during a scene where Heche tosses designer clothes at Kutcher and he looks on with what is (assumedly) supposed to be darkness and angst, we are pressed to wonder how many takes it took for him to do it without cracking up.

Nevermind the derivative, unimaginative story and the all-too-predictable comeuppance moralizing that happens in the second half. And I would be grateful if anyone can answer me about just what in the hell is going on with any or all of the following: a sequence where Heche has Kutcher mysteriously drive her to the hospital for an overnight stay, later revealed to have been for vaginal reconstructive surgery; an encounter Kutcher has with a former lay in a grocery store, midday, only to find out the girl is tanked and needs to pull over on the drive home to throw up; and, once again, Kutcher's wardrobe, especially one scene where his suspenders and a black-and-white striped shirt make him look like a street mime - is this 'style' considered trendy and hip in LA these days? (And if so, god help us.) When Ashton finally hits bottom and resorts to selling off his Gucci clothes at a pawnshop only to throw a hissy fit outside on the street - not sure how I was supposed to react to this (I laughed) - it really gets driven home that we are watching Kelso from That 70's Show try to 'act'... and it doesn't work.

Is all of this supposed to be taken ironically or seen as some kind of contemporary social commentary? If so, I had trouble reading it that way, and I think most of the credit for that is due to the headliner. Maybe if Ashton Kutcher himself was in any way relevant over the last few years beyond Demi Moore/douchebag jokes, coming into this film an audience might more properly be able to frame the experience. Sadly, the end result is all too tragically similar to the degrading way the girls in the film come off: utterly pathetic.

Sometimes Hollywood stars need to know their place on the walk of fame. A few stars - like Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis, seem to make the transition from the small screen to the large blockbusters in one effortless bounce. It's almost as if their personas are too big to be contained in a TV sitcom, and need the silver screen to blossom and grow. Others - like Ashton Kutcher - should be happily entertaining us on the small screen, where we can appreciate his quirky - yet limited - talents.

"Spread" proves that Ashton's skills just get lost once he wandered away from a TV sound stage. This movie is driven neither by tightly constructed plot or nor believable character development. And so sadly, we're reminded again that marginal B-list stars like Ashton Kutcher have to make a living, too.

Starring Ashton Kutcher and Anne Heche, this movie vainly attempts to tell the story of a small-time west coast hustler, who imagines himself more successful than he actually is, in the harsh reality light bulb that is LA. Kutcher plays Nikki, who introduces himself with this voice over narration during a three + minute long take. (What male uses the female spelling for his first name?) "My whole life it was obvious I was going to end up in this city. I don't want to be arrogant here, but I'm an incredibly attractive man. I can't help it, I don't try to be, I just am. When I was a kid my mother's best friend used to tell me that I was gonna be a little heart breaker. Turns out she was right. Her husband came home from work one day and found us f*#kin' on the Stairmaster. Los Angeles, California - that's where all the beautiful little heart breakers go to live the dream. 30,000 of them arrive here every single month. 30,000 prom kings and queens, and Little Miss Cute Tits every one of them with stars in their eyes and a dream in their heart. When I first came out here, I had a dream - a dream of an easy life. I was gonna get rich from lyin' around having my picture taken. I was gonna live in the hills and drive a noisy yellow sports car and f*ck 6' girls who weighed 89 lbs. Guess what? Most of it came true." Is it surprising that it's all downhill from here? Kutcher is unconvincing as the LA hustler of wealthy women, since he obviously doesn't have anything to show for it. He picks up a woman, plays lounge lizard for a while, and then gets kicked out or – get this - he leaves! What successful hustler is going to walk out on makeup sex - at night - with only a third grade knapsack to show for it? Nikki spends 70% of his time playing couch potato at Samantha's (Anne Heche) upscale LA home and another 10% of the time playing Kama Sutra around her palatial digs while she whines about how badly he's treating her. And I do mean whines. . .shudder. The other 20% is spent in circular arguments with his dauntless friend, Harry, played by Sebastian Stan. Harry, in turn, lectures Nikki nonstop, with feminist phrases like "objectifying women" – no, seriously! – as Nikki vainly chases Heather, (Margarita Levieva) a small-time hustler who ultimately beats him at his own tired game.

This film gets Mr. Kutcher one nod for a sad little moment in a hotel room, where he hopelessly attempts to connect with someone, via a voice message.

But this reviewer is snatching back our one nod because of a sick final scene, involving a frog and a live mouse – and we wonder just who in Hades paid off PETA?

I've been meaning to watch this film for quite some time and I finally got a chance to do so.First,I'm a fan of Ashton Kutcher, I think he's a very charismatic actor who does fairly enjoyable movies. Secondly, I'm a sucker for films about love,sex and relationships in general,I'm also fascinated by L.A. and its lifestyle and fourth,this seemed to have an Alfie(2004) kind of vibe to it.I wasn't disappointed.Kutcher plays Nikki, and right in the beginning of the movie the character says that he came to L.A. with the dream of having an easy life,sleep with as many beautiful girls as possible and basically to have the time of his life and that most of this did,in fact, came truth.This is Nikki, a young and attractive guy who sleeps his way into the life of privilege he wants.His routine is fairly simple,he seduces someone with money and then stays around continually charming the person and earning their trust and eventually the person allows Nikki to stay in their house and most of the time they actually pamper him with free stuff. Nikki then uses this amazing houses or fancy clothes to impress someone else.Needless to say that he juggles several woman at once.At some point Nikki becomes attracted to a waiter but much to his shock this girl unlike most of the woman he sleeps with,does not fall for his little games or succumb to his tricks(which by the way he narrates to the audience trough the movie).Maybe because she's the one girl he apparently can't have or for some other reason(although the first seems accurate to me)Nikki falls in love with this girl. In the meantime Nikki is living in Samantha's house, a 30'something business woman he seduced.He ends up being caught cheating (with someone other then the waiter) and after a few fights the relationship ends.Broke and without a place to stay Nikki resorts to Heather,the waiter and moves in with her.He falls even more in love with her but he also finds out that she's playing the same cards as him,she is too whoring himself out to the highest bidder in order to have a lifestyle she couldn't possible afford. Nikki tries to make a commitment with Heather but in the end she chooses her own Sugar Daddy over him.Defeated Nikki gives up the lifestyle he had been leading and in the end he comes back to Samantha's house but as a delivery guy and we see that Samantha already replaced him with another young guy. There's no happy ending here which makes the movie so much better and realistic.This film is being misinterpreted as a romantic comedy,but it couldn't be more far from it. The film ends with a sad and depressing tone but isn't life like that at times? Also, the soundtrack is quite interesting and mainly compose by indie bands. Overall, a good movie, very enjoyable with lots of eye candy and a good performance by Kutcher.

On a side note, I've seen some people complain about the character's style saying that he looked gay and saying that the character wasn't believable as a womanizer...nonsense. His look can't be pulled off by everyone but its definitely a look and I think Kutcher played Nikki brilliantly, he managed to reveal the humanity in his character in a very subtle yet efficient way.

7/10

This movie was dreadful. Firstly, Ashton Kusher may be suitable to play jovial roles in tawdry sitcoms; however, he lacks the talent to assume more serious parts. The main character in Spread is a young cad named Nikki (Kusher), who narrates about the complexities of living in Los Angeles. Yet his narration is mostly a collection of meaningless quotes that make him sound like a buffoon trying to appear knowledgeable.

Nikki visits a nightclub one evening and meets Samantha (Anne Heche), a rich older lawyer with a lavish condo. The two start a relationship and the film is loaded with sex scenes of this 'cougar' and her 'boy-toy.' Nikki moves into her condo (he is a bum without a house or a car, thus he repeatedly mooches off wealthy older women). After a few days, Samantha leaves for a business trip and Nikki invites some younger girls over for some carnal escapades. Samantha comes home early from her trip and catches Nikki cheating, yells at him, but then seconds later the two start having sex.

The character development in the movie is flimsy. Heche's acting is acceptable, yet the film neglects to explain how a gorgeous and successful lawyer is drawn to an underachiever like Nikki. The director of the film, David McKenzie, is focused on skin over story. This should be his last film for the silver screen and he should apply his skills to pornography, which seems to be his preference. That may sound harsh; however, anyone who directs a movie heavy on sex, low on plot, and with bad acting is not suited to make legitimate films.

As the story progresses, Nikki later genuinely falls in love with an attractive waitress named Heather (Margarita Levieva). But she is a hustler who abandons him for a rich businessman in New York. A dejected Nikki returns to L.A. where he gets a job delivering groceries.

This is 98 minutes of my life that I will never get back. None of the characters are worth caring for and the acting, aside from Heche, is lousy. The only reason I am not giving this movie a 1 rating is because my 2010 New Year's Resolution is be a nicer person and voting 2 out of 10 constitutes an act of generosity.

The one scene that will strike you and linger around after you walked out of the cinemas, it's the final scene. It's no spoiler, but it walked right out of National Geographic, where you see up close, how a toad devours a mouse. Swallow in fact, allowing it to semi-digest, while occasionally tugging at the tail. It's downright gross as a parting short, but the camera stayed firmly on it for minutes during the entire end credits.

Anyway, back to the film. If you're blessed with good looks and a fine bod, I suppose sometimes you wonder if you're God's gift to women. For Ashton Kutcher's Nikki, his is a life of a classic dreamer, thinking that with his kind of aesthetics, he could be living the life straight out of a Van Halen music video, with flashy cars, plenty of cash and fast women to spend the rest of his days with. Unfortunately with no life skills to offer except the ability to pleasure women, he exploits his talent in order to live up to that impossible dream.

It's pretty much an instructional video on the tactics used by contemporary gigolos, or at least those who are looking to live off rich sugar mommies. Like a hunter preying on his mark, Nikki's not looking out for hot young things to feed his lifestyle, that will come later after he's snagged the anchor, who is that successful, single middle aged lady to hook up with, leading him to Anne Heche's Samantha (who looks really hot in the film, mind you).

Inventor of the rollover sleeping smile, they form a symbiotic relationship, one needing a toy boy for those lonely nights, while the other needing her extravagant Peter Bogdanovich's ex- mansion, sturdy Mercedes which needless to say, comes in extremely useful for parties and hosting of other nubile women to sucker when the cat's away. The premise of living the life at another's expense, using a bodily trade off, reminded me of the French film Priceless starring Audrey Tautou, who plays the gold-digger in that film.

There's plenty of gratuitous nudity and sex to go around until the second half of the film which switched gears and turned out hunter into the prey, when he meets up with waitress Heather (Margarita Levieva) who's actually more of a player than he is, and it's like a match made in heaven in a karmic round-robin, with what's going around coming around. It is this aspect of the film that somewhat sagged that incredible, dream like freeloading taking place in the first half, and somehow turned this into sappy romance territory with its message on the consequence of non-permanence in relationships that will come back and haunt you.

Ashton Kutcher looked incredibly comfortable as the serial womanizer and slacker in life, clueless about what to do when he meets with the real woman of his desire. He gives Nikki that smugness and comfort in knowing that he's living the moment, with that natural despair coming in when he understands that he's now down the slippery slope of no return. Anne Heche pretty much owned the supporting role in the first act, before disappearing for Margarita Levieva to take over the female lead in the second act, as the two women to have made the most impact in Nikki's life.

I could come up with something naughty to say about its title as the parting shot, but I'll leave it at that. Spread isn't top class material with its profound sleaze, but at least it had that memorable ending shot enough to make you reel a little, and talk about it. Strictly for those interested in what the R21 fuss is all about, and surprisingly, a lot more females in the audience than there are men.

I watched this movie with my boyfriend, thinking it might be OK. We were so very wrong. Everything from the plot to the acting was just awful. I am usually a fan of Ashton, but this was just crap. I can never look at suspenders the same way again---why did he have to wear them in EVERY single scene? In terms of the plot, it was so predictable once you understood what was going on. Watching Ashton live out of a garbage bag and whore himself out to Anne Heche was certainly not something we had prepared ourselves for on date night. I also like Anne Heche, but I really did not need to see her naked. Not too mention, the whole vaginal-reconstruction thing was a bit much for us.If you consider yourself even slightly intelligent, do not watch this movie.