ecbarth
This story is a very true character study that I can attest to of the freedom that everyone grants you when you maintain a scholarly and overachieving front, maybe not as to the extremes of the murder as shown in this movie but still very real. This shows the lesser characterized side of intellect, how you use it when your bored and you realize you can outsmart everyone around you and expand into drugs, scams, etc. Operate with impunity and because your keeping grades and appearances up no one suspects a thing. I'm not saying its true for everyone but this movie is a very real look when your bored, stuck in suburbia , and decide to make the rash jump into more "interesting" pursuits and figure your smart enough to get away with.The film itself never leaves you bored even though its not flashy. The characters themselves are very believable and conceited in their own greatness. The story is well paced and shows the gradual progression into the dark underbelly when temptations meet brains that think they are beyond limitation. And despite what others try to slap on as a detractor to this film, race really doesn't have anything to do with it, its just the group of kids portrayed in the film. Their grades, immorality and decisions they make have nothing to do with race
jisens
This movie was a big joke. High school isn't like this. It was one of the worst films I have ever seen. I caught occasional glimpses of the movie between fits of laughter, and every second I watched disappointed me further. The supposed "high school" cast looked like 30 year old men. Virgil was the only developed character in the whole film.. and all he did was annoy me and make me wanna turn the movie off. Terrible movie.Terrible Actors. Terrible premise. Don't WATCH IT
Tobey
I was compelled to borrow this from my library due to my crush on John Cho, aka Harold from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Anyhoo, I was so surprised at what a great, compelling movie it is. The actors are uniformly excellent. I was most drawn to the performances of Parry Shen and Jason Tobin, who play Ben and Virgil. Friends since childhood, they get drawn into a stylish and dark high school underworld of crime and violence.MTV Films has produced some interesting films, possibly one of the few companies that consistently releases original and surprising 'feels like independent' films.
zippy g
So for the most part I really liked this movie. I thought it showed great potential from the director and cast. Strange that after three years most of them have been in limbo career- wise. However, my comments lay more in the major turning point of the film rather than the whereabouts of the filmmakers. The one problem I had with the story is when Ben kills Steve. How the hell do you set up a character that you're supposed to have sympathy for and then have him do something as horrific as that. Especially in the brutal manner in which it was done. And for what! A girl...that he kinda liked...and that kinda liked him...and maybe they kissed. Maybe I'm missing something, but after that I could care less about what happened to Ben. I wanted to care more, but what the hell, now I can't see him as a likable guy anymore. You can't root for someone you don't like at least on some level. Other then that I liked what I saw. There's a lot of budding talent here: Sung Kang, Jason Tobin, and John Cho are among the ones that stood out for me personally, and overall I really liked the way Justin Lin pulled off the film.
AD
