Something is off from the first scene, which involves bacon sandwiches and allusions to one character’s girlfriend seeing something that looked sexual but was not. Miranda (Brittany Allen) tries to cheer up Lucian (Noah Silver) after his girlfriend Elizabeth (Olivia Crocicchia) has stormed away from the cabin they’ve been holed up in all weekend. The aforementioned sexual tension is supposed to be between childhood friends Miranda and Lucien, but the actors have zero chemistry and the banal dialogue does them no favors. “Have a bacon sandwich, hee-hee-hee!” says Miranda. “I’m not hungry,” says Lucian. “It’s good for you, hee-hee-hee!” replies Miranda, holding an admittedly delicious-looking sammy in her hands. “If Elizabeth truly loves you, she’ll come back and see it was all a mistake! Hee-hee-hee!”
Not since John Travolta’s Terl in “Battlefield Earth” have I been presented with a character who punctuates damn near every sentence with a goofy laugh. Allen, who gives one of the worst performances I have ever seen in a film, applies this tic to the increasingly dreadful dialogue (credited to three writers) she is forced to utter. It’s so annoying that you want to mute the soundtrack. Since Miranda is supposed to be the kind of seductress Sybil Danning, Shannon Tweed or Sylvia Kristel would have played had “Backgammon” been made 30 years ago, Allen is forced to exude what director Francisco Orvañanos erroneously thinks is sexiness. Allen slinks around the entire film with her mouth slightly agape like the Gerber baby, scrunching up her face and giggling at every opportunity. Had her character been revealed to be an alien from a distant planet who got all her ideas about the human female from 12-year old boys, it would have been a more convincing plot twist than anything “Backgammon” offers the viewer.
Silver fares no better. He too walks around with his mouth open, a blank stare on his face that’s supposed to represent, I don’t know, confusion? Horniness? Fear? He looks the same in every situation. His character is written as the dumbest man on Earth, a guy who stays around hoping to get lucky even after his lust object starts cutting herself and demanding “let’s play Backgammon, hee-hee-hee!” Every time Lucian tries to escape, the script finds a way to keep him around for no credible reason. Sure, he’d like to sleep with Miranda, but Jesus, she is not the only fish in the sea. Doesn’t this guy have Tinder?
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