.a.meter - 7.5/10

the breakdown: wannabe’ white drug dealer gangsta’ twenty-somethings end up kidnapping a 15 year old kid. why? 15 year old kid has a neo-nazi real gangsta’ brother who owes wannabes money. 15 doesn’t want to cause trouble for nazi bro, so he goes along willingly and ends up befriending his kidnappers, leading him to think that he’ll be fine. things go wrong when a) leader of wannabes finds out that he and his crew could spend life in prison for kidnapping and b) nazi bro promises to hunt leader until he’s dead (a promise which seems very likely due to the completely insane nature of nazi bro).  leader has to decide if he’s going to let the kid go and risk him ratting them out, or kill him and only have nazi bro to deal with.

5 adjectives to describe the movie: intense, sad, frustrating, harsh, dumb

standouts:

ben foster (nazi bro/jake mazursky): he steals the show.  hands down the best performance of the film.  sparks up a little comparison to ed norton in american history x.

anton yelchin (15/zack mazursky): manages to capture all of the innocence and good naturedness a smart 15 year old kid with a good upbringing who thinks it’s cool that he’s hanging with the cool guy’s. has no clue he’s the coolest guy.

emile hirsch (wannabe leader/johnny truelove): makes you believe he’s a white wannabe gangsta’ who has watched one too many videos on MTV.  he’s smart enough to make a lot of money by selling drugs to his rich friends and stupid enough to think that it’s a great idea to kidnap someone. the irony of his character is almost unbearable.

justin timberlake (gangsta’ crew/frankie ballenbacher):  not standout, but must be mentioned just because he’s being used so heavily to promote the movie. he’s good for the character…very likeable, a little clueless and ultimately a punk who makes a stupid decision. it feels a little like justin timberlake is playing justin timberlake.

sharon stone (mom/olivia mazursky): she doesn’t do much in the movie until near the end…and then to watch her is absolutely heartbreaking. her odd make-up job draws a little bit away from the overall emotion of the scene, which is shot very close-up…but perfectly executed.

the bottom line: i enjoyed the movie mainly because it’s based pretty closely on a true story (don’t click on that link if you don’t want the outcome of the movie spoiled). some of the acting came as a secondary (pleasant) surprise for me. i gave it a 7.5 because, on some level, it feels a little contrived. the language is extremely coarse…almost to the point of mind-numbing in its stupidity. bruce willis’ ‘dad to the wannabe gangsta’ character probably could have felt more integrated into the story.  as it were, he felt like an afterthought.  he makes the opening statement to the movie, which is some line about ‘parents not doing a good enough job’, but you don’t really get the sense that HE did a bad job…though it’s certainly implied. another thing to note is that ben foster’s acting intensity is so powerful, so believeable, so raw, that he really makes some of the rest of the cast look like amatuers. the heavy-handed use of timberlake’s superstar-power draw is forgiveable because he actually manages to reconcile his character well.

overall…you simply cannot get over how completely senseless the outcome is. you are left reeling at the sheer stupidity and arrogance of all of the characters involved…including the ‘witnesses’.  it’s even more angering in that cassavetes (the director) manages to make you truly care about the kid…makes you want to jump up and scream at everyone who is using him for their ends, but also makes you want to jump up and throttle him for being so damn naieve. finally, if it makes you want to pay a little more attention to your kids life…mission accomplished.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 at 5:44 am and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.