I hated this movie. It had some nice camera work but that's the only good thing about it. It lazily tries to convey high school alienation by just not developing anybody and leaves the job of sympathy for the characters up to the subject matter, which you may or may not have been manipulated by. I obviously wasn't.
It's not surprising that Van Sant picked the actors out of school hallways. Which means I'm hinting that the acting was mediocre. I'm surprised the whole movie wasn't directed by a student considering how amateur it is.
And then the film fails at even being disturbing because actions conducted by the characters during the shooting were so illogical that it became hilarious. When the two shooters first walk into the library, holding massive tech-9's btw, the geek girl turns to them, somehow misses the tech-9's, and says something like "You guys..." before getting shockingly blown away. Then Ricky....I mean the kid with the camera, just stands there and stares at them and takes a picture. Aww, that's beautiful and poignant. 10! 10! Then while guns are going off, one kid in class (who btw was sitting around with the rest of his class in a circle discussing how to spot a gay person.....okay.....) gets up to check it out while the teacher does nothing, shockingly gets blown away (which has the most noticeable goof in film history)) so the class calmly walk over and drag their shot dead classmate in, which brings us to "Benny", the most illogical character of the whole movie. Why he walks around like a freaking idiot is never mentioned. He can't be mentally challenged, because he knows enough to help a classmate through a window. He's not deaf, because he sees the bloody corpses and fires. He's not trying to stop the killers, because he just casually walks over to one of the killers (before shockingly getting blown away) like he's going to ask him what time it is. What is his deal? More poignant art, I suppose. And finally, we have the couple in the meat locker. They are surrounded by windows and exits which lead directly to the front of the school and away from danger, so they hide there.
This was pretentious crap pretending to be art. And borrowed a bit too much from Kubrick, I might add. Hey look, one of the teen killers is a Beethoven fan. Where have I seen that before?
A better film, albeit over the top, is Bang Bang You're Dead.
It's not surprising that Van Sant picked the actors out of school hallways. Which means I'm hinting that the acting was mediocre. I'm surprised the whole movie wasn't directed by a student considering how amateur it is.
And then the film fails at even being disturbing because actions conducted by the characters during the shooting were so illogical that it became hilarious. When the two shooters first walk into the library, holding massive tech-9's btw, the geek girl turns to them, somehow misses the tech-9's, and says something like "You guys..." before getting shockingly blown away. Then Ricky....I mean the kid with the camera, just stands there and stares at them and takes a picture. Aww, that's beautiful and poignant. 10! 10! Then while guns are going off, one kid in class (who btw was sitting around with the rest of his class in a circle discussing how to spot a gay person.....okay.....) gets up to check it out while the teacher does nothing, shockingly gets blown away (which has the most noticeable goof in film history)) so the class calmly walk over and drag their shot dead classmate in, which brings us to "Benny", the most illogical character of the whole movie. Why he walks around like a freaking idiot is never mentioned. He can't be mentally challenged, because he knows enough to help a classmate through a window. He's not deaf, because he sees the bloody corpses and fires. He's not trying to stop the killers, because he just casually walks over to one of the killers (before shockingly getting blown away) like he's going to ask him what time it is. What is his deal? More poignant art, I suppose. And finally, we have the couple in the meat locker. They are surrounded by windows and exits which lead directly to the front of the school and away from danger, so they hide there.
This was pretentious crap pretending to be art. And borrowed a bit too much from Kubrick, I might add. Hey look, one of the teen killers is a Beethoven fan. Where have I seen that before?
A better film, albeit over the top, is Bang Bang You're Dead.