'Bug' starts out as a thriller, ends a mess

'Bug' starts out as a thriller, ends a mess
May 24, 2007
"Bug" is a different kind of woman-in-peril movie starring Ashley Judd, which has long been its own specific genre.
Judd is in peril here once again, but she gets to prove she actually can act with some depth, and not just look pretty under strain. Whatever unexpected ability she shows in the early scenes of this paranoid thriller go to waste, however, as the film spirals ridiculously out of control by the end.

The film comes from veteran William Friedkin ("The Exorcist," "The French Connection"), a director who has seen better days. Friedkin still maintains a mastery of suspense for the first half or so, and "Bug" can be intriguing as a character study of two damaged people who find a whole new way to damage each other further. Until it just becomes silly, that is.

Judd stars as Agnes, a lonely waitress at a run-down bar who lives in an even rattier motel, subsisting on a diet of cigarettes, vodka and pot.
Agnes' only friend is fellow waitress R.C.

(Lynn Collins), who is pretty and gay and who flirts with her and makes her feel loved, or at least vaguely wanted. Sporadically, Agnes' brutish ex-husband (Harry Connick Jr. as a believable bad guy) breezes in and abuses her physically and mentally.

Something horrific happened that tore them apart, which we learn about later.
But her pathetic life gets shaken up by a quiet drifter named Peter (Michael Shannon, whose presence and delivery are riveting), who hangs out at the bar one night and quickly moves in with her. He's decent to her, which most people aren't; she listens to him, which most people don't.

Their shared neediness is palpable. Their big love scene, however, is laughable -- overly artsy and pretentious, with extreme close-ups of Judd's breasts, which may sound hot but, in truth, are just distracting.
Once Agnes and Peter fall for each other, it doesn't take long for him to suck her into his delusional conspiracy theories involving the military, scientific testing, chemical technology and .

.. bugs!

Hence the title.
The former soldier says he's the victim of an experiment in which insects have been inserted into his body as transmitters, and now he's on the run from the government. Or something.

Or as he puts it when he spots one of the insects crawling on the bed, "It's a bloodsucking aphid, and we're infested.