- Audience-Alienating Premise: The short version — it's a family comedy about three 11-year-old boys who want to see a naked prostitute. Try selling that to a modern audience. The film also weaves in odd tonal moments like an 11-year old boy complaining that he's losing the "battle of the sexes" (leading him to seek out works like Cosmopolitan, then hire a hooker, in an attempt to be "mature"), the third act playing heavily into the Damsel in Distress trope by making V a brief hostage who has to be rescued and ferried by said group of pre-teen boys, or the comedy (yes, in a family friendly film) that's mined by V trying to... ply her trade in a small-town suburb where everyone knows each other.
- Bile Fascination: You'll be left pondering how such a premise tried to pass itself off as a family-friendly comedy.
- Crosses the Line Twice: A sequence in the third act has Waltzer (having just escaped from a school gymnasium storage closet after being locked in by the boys when they rescue V) storms out into the school's parking lot and forcefully drags another hooker/The Informant, Betty, to their car, claiming that she's "not worth a single bullet" while Betty tries to justify that she is. You read that right — the Big Bad is trying to convince himself not to shoot a hooker, while the hooker in question is trying to convince him to shoot her (albeit, in an inebriated state). This is Played for Laughs in a family-friendly film.
- Glurge:V: There is a place you can touch on a woman that will make her go crazy.Frank: Where?V: Her heart.
- The entire film may count. The premise is disturbing enough, but to make it a lighthearted family comedy?!
- Les Yay: The girls are a little too into Frank's class presentation.
- Memetic Mutation: "I'm going to the So'op."
- No Yay: The concept of a pre-teen boy who convinces a Hooker with a Heart of Gold to hide out in his treehouse, takes baths in his house when his father is out (and her being seemingly okay with him walking in on her mid-bath), the odd way she interacts with him (hugging him close at several points, in ways that are clearly set up as sex jokes) and dancing over him while wearing a short skirt when he's laying on the ground looking upwards at a school dance, in front of teachers, is likely to elicit this reaction from audiences.
- Squick: The film, as a whole, engages in moments that were barely (if at all) tolerated at the time it was made, and are far less forgiving in the modern age.
- The entire concept of a group of pre-teens paying a hooker to flash them. To note — the actual production of the scene barely skirted legality between Griffith and the children, as she wore Post-It notes over her breasts to comply with decency requirements involving minors on-set.
- The Double Entendre conversation between V and Frank's father, where she thinks he knows about her job as a prostitute, and is apparently propositioning her to teach his son about sex ("Think you can fit him in?"), before she finally (or rather, misleadingly) convinces him that she's Frank's math tutor.
- Frank's Precocious Crush on V manifests itself in him being able to walk in on her while she's having a bath, to which neither she nor Frank react with much surprise (the two other boys, who barge in on this scene, are far more shocked).
- V dancing over Frank during the Sock Hop, while wearing a short skirt. Even more absurdly, none of the teachers nor the students comment on the Frank is distinctly looking upwards while this happens.
- Took the Bad Film Seriously: Malcolm McDowell acts pretty seriously in comparison to everyone else.
- Uncertain Audience: Critics at the time of the film's release noted that it tried to marry elements of a Coming of Age Story, a sex comedy, a romance and a thriller without being particularly adept at any of them, with Roger Ebert even pointing the problem out in his 1994 review
, which posits the confused tone as a conversation between two studio executives pitching the film.note Released in a time (1994) when Coming of Age Story works like The Sandlot, The Pagemaster and the remake of The Little Rascals all rode to box-office success, it weaves in elements about a Hooker with a Heart of Gold who is running from the mob and takes refuge in a Meet Cute scenario with the protagonist and his father. Too dark to be a family-friendly film (one of the scenes has V openly soliciting for clients to make enough money to get a hotel room for the night), and too much Glurge to qualify as a comedy-thriller fusion (the third act is motivated by the three boys having to rescue V from her mob boss, who is holding her at gunpoint, by initiating a fire alarm at a school dance). - Values Dissonance: Even with the razor-thin justification that a Coming of Age Story about pre-teen boys who hire a Hooker with a Heart of Gold to flash them may have played well in 1994, further decades of awareness of the challenges associated with The Oldest Profession and much harsher laws designed to protect minors from online predators and sex workers, and this doesn't even have the benefit of being wistful.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Was possibly supposed to be made as a "romantic comedy". That doesn't quite work when your protagonists are actually three 11-year-old boys!note
