John Cusack and James Spader prove their mettle as actors by investing this stupefyingly naive and predictable melodrama with genuine conviction. Both play law students at the University of Virginia. The script, by the usually astute Kevin Wade (Working Girl), helps the audience tell them apart by making Spader's Tim Garrity always virtuous and Cusack's Peter Burton always awful. Garrity becomes a prosecutor; Burton, natch, enters politics. Herbert Ross (Steel Magnolias) directs this high-gloss hokum without a trace of irony or a redeeming sense of shame.

“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”