"I don't need this in my goddamn life! You think I need Ryan's Babe in my fucking life?! You think I wanna explain the- the Inception Flashback Within a Flashback within a flashback?! YOU THINK I WANNA TALK ABOUT THAT?!"
—Rich Evans's review of the film, Best of the Worst
Ryan's Babe is a Canadian thriller film directed by Ray Ramayya, PhD, and released in 2000. It follows the story of Ryan, an unfortunate college kid that is on the run from the father of his love interest, Connie, after she supposedly attempted suicide after an argument with her. A series of events then befall upon Ryan as he makes his way south of Saskatchewan and soon finds himself in the United States with nothing but a few bucks and the clothes on his back.
Only airing on a Canadian premium cable TV channel a few times in its year of release, the film languished in total obscurity until a VHS screener was found in a dumpster, literally, by Tyler Baptist, founder of Canadian B-movie distributor Videonomicon. Having been fascinated by the film, he arranged for a limited home release. It didn't get attention of particular significance until it was featured on RedLetterMedia's Best of the Worst.
Ryan's Babe provides examples of:
- The Alcoholic: Connie's father, who gets kicked out of a bar for having a drunken argument and drinks even more when he finds out about Connie's suicide attempt.
- Butt-Monkey: Ryan is just a very unlucky guy. He gets abducted twice, almost gets his dick cut off, and gets drugged multiple times, one of which leads to Date Rape.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Ryan can't help but assist those in need, which often gets him in trouble as much as it doesn't.
- Decoy Protagonist: The first quarter of the movie makes you think that Sally/Krista is, at the very least, an important character that will stick with Ryan since the opening focuses on her. She actually leaves Ryan by the end of that quarter once her problems are solved and doesn't appear again.
- Dogged Nice Girl: The movie attempts to have Connie be this. In reality, she's more of a Stalker with a Crush as she sabotages Ryan's relationship with his girlfriend and fakes suicide to get his attention.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Ryan gets roofied by Barbara, who then brings him to her hotel room and sleeps with him because he reminds her of her long dead husband. This is all played as a sympathetic moment for Barbara and Ryan is not traumatized or rather bothered by having been date raped by an old woman.
- Driven to Suicide: Subverted. Connie apparently slit her wrists and overdosed on sleeping pills just because Ryan keeps rejecting her. Then it turns out that it was all a stunt to get Ryan's attention. The pills were fake and she cut herself in such a way that she lost minimal blood.
- Easily Forgiven: Ryan has little to no reaction to being: scammed, beaten, kidnapped, raped or being scammed into being beaten and kidnapped before being raped and never seeks retribution for anything done to him.
- To put it into perspective, in one scene he gets assaulted during a home invasion (and nearly castrated) before being tied up and dumped in a completely different state; when he wakes up he just washes his hands and leaves like nothing happened.
- He also gets flat out raped in another scene and proceeds to just go back to sleep with his rapist afterwards.
- Flashback Within a Flashback: During the flashback initiated when Ryan is telling his backstory to Krista, Ryan sees Connie injured from a bike crash and has a flashback to when he was a child and found his bike run over by a car.
- Homage: This movie is supposedly a very loose one to The Odyssey, considering that it's the book Ryan's college friends study and Connie can be seen reading. Ryan escaping from Connie's father and the wacky hijinks that occur are meant to parallel Odysseus's journey in the poem.
- Identical Stranger: Ryan gets kidnapped by some mobsters who mistake him for a rival Mob boss's son, who looks exactly like Ryan except for the hair.
- In Medias Res: The movie begins with Ryan giving a ride to a woman at gunpoint. Ryan then explains to her the whole series of events that led to that very moment.
- Immune to Drugs: Ryan can evidently shake off being drugged sometimes within seconds of being knocked out by them.
- Instant Sedation: Ryan gets roofied numerous times and starts feeling the effects of them pretty much as soon as the drugs make it past his lips.
- Mind Screw: At one point, Connie's father (Bill) tries to order another beer, only for the bartender, Jim, to cut him off. The issue is that Jim says both lines
.Jim: (talking to someone offscreen) I'll have another one, Jim! No more today, Bill. Please escort this gentleman to the door! - New Job as the Plot Demands: Ryan seems to get new jobs with ease, and with nice benefits.
- His first job has him working at a diner near a gas station. It comes with a makeshift living space in a strip mall.
- His second job has him working at a hotel resort. It comes with some new clothes for him to own, a used car to replace the one he lost, and a proper living space.
- No Ending: The movie ends with Ryan getting arrested for giving a ride to a woman that stole money and jewelry, his fate unknown. He doesn't even get home when this happens.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: The college cheerleaders and the trucker who drug Ryan are meant to be Americans, but they have noticeable Canadian accents.
- Papa Wolf: Connie's father never liked Ryan ever since he was a kid, but Connie's fake suicide attempt and her blaming Ryan for it is what sends her father over the edge.
- Passed in Their Sleep: Barbara dies in her sleep overnight from a massive heart attack after sleeping with a roofied-up Ryan.
- Police Are Useless: Ryan somehow manages to get across the border to the United States with little trouble despite driving a vehicle he bought off of two crooks that manufacture counterfeit money and the vehicle being identified by the police as that of the crooks over the radio.
- Random Events Plot: There doesn't seem to be any connective tissue between scenes. They just tend to happen without much buildup and end with little to no payoff.
- Road Trip Plot: What the movie looks like it's trying to do. The Random Events Plot makes it unclear of what it actually is.
- Stockholm Syndrome: Ryan has a distressingly quick version of this. Whenever he gets kidnapped or held at gunpoint, he gets very comfortable with the perpetrator in what seems like less than an hour.
- Wicked Cultured: "Shakespeare", a mobster that reads lots of Shakespeare because he finds his plays to be inspiring.
