Heart of America

Movie #4 of my Uwe Boll marathon (and second I've watched today) and I really don't know what to think about it. Most movies you rate on enjoyability, but this movie obviously wasn't supposed to be entertaining and I know that so it feels weird giving it an absolutely awful rating, but also it just...I don't know what its trying to say??? I do like that the main message seems to be "the extreme violence in schools is caused by the already existent violence by peers" and doesn't take the path of blaming it on media and video games, that's a very mature take on it, granted if he DID say that, then he'd retroactively say all of his future movies cause mass shootings so it just makes sense that he doesn't believe that (and I don't either.) Just, there's so much weird and strange and I don't understand about this film. Nearly 45+ minutes of it could've been cut from the film and not changed it in any way.

In Uwe Boll's commentary on the DVD of "Alone in the Dark" he brags about how Ron Howard liked "Heart of America". I really have to wonder what Ron was thinking. Some might think of this film as bold for taking on the hot topic of school shootings, but others (including me) think of it as a travesty for badly dramatizing it. It is an intriguing, important topic, but I've never seen a film successfully tackle it (No, I'm not a fan of "Elephant"). I was in high school when most of the school shootings were happening, so I feel a kind of connection to the subject.

This film follows various high school kids through their last day of school. We cut between various pre-class conversations in cars, bedrooms, offices, etc. For every character there's a clearly (and mechanically) laid out conflict. Among them are a student who deals drugs, a couple of students who's relationship is ending, a tweaker student, a group of bullies, a teacher who is overly harsh on his students, and the two misfit kids planning the shooting. There are lots and lots of flashbacks (in black and white) explaining how things got this way for the misfit kids.

Clint Howard shows up as one of the shooter kids' emotionally abusive father. Jurgen Prochnow plays the school principal. And for no reason at all, Michael Pare appears as the teacher in a performance that reminds us all why he's on the celebrity Z list. None of these characters seem all that convincing and the dialog comes straight from an after school special (plus swearing, of course). The writers don't realty seem to understand their teenage subjects, resulting in the same major problem as "Elephant": you don't really come to care about the characters. Flimsy plot combined with irritating characters does not result in a compelling film.

This subject deserved a much better treatment. However, this is probably the height of schlock director Uwe Boll's career. The characters are irritating, and some of them you wouldn't mind seeing killed, but that's more than you can say for "House of the Dead" or "Alone in the Dark". That said, it is a tedious, insultingly dumb movie which I doubt anyone could benefit from watching.

Uwe Boll isn't exactly a name I praise very highly, actually his movies 'House of the dead' and 'Alone In The Dark' are 2 of the worst movies I've seen.

He does get it right occasionally though, with for instance 'Rampage' and 'Assault On WallStreet' oddly enough both those have a similar theme of mass-shootings as this one, perhaps that's a subjectmatter that Uwe simply connects with the most and thereby where he shines the most in doing.

I have no idea why this is so low rated, I think it could have to do with 2 things:

1. Although it's inspired by Columbine a lot of things have been changed around and perhaps people thought that that was wrong or...

2. The shooters are portrayed as humans, not just psychos going on a rampage and some of the victims are indeed seen as "asking for it". And that might have rubbed some Americans the wrong way, who'd want nothing more than to believe that kids who commit this acts are born monsters.

It's not a flawless movie tho, as it is a ensemble-dramathriller some characters aren't as interesting as others but Brendan Fletcher is amazing as the lead-bully they really couldn't have found anyone better for the job.

Most of the cast does a very good job tho but he and Kett Turton stands out the most and are the main focus of the movie.

It's probably Uwe Boll's greatest movie.

As everyone realizes by now, this is probably Boll's best work, but that's hardly a compliment considering his abhorrent filmography. This one detracts from his usual game-to-movie adaptation, and it's basically a remake of Columbine. It tries to create insight regarding the shooting, but it's mostly just banal sentimentality with copycat flair, one-dimensional, predictable characters with conventional, exaggerated teenage problems, and slow-paced, pointless black-and-white sequences to show us the 'troubled' past of these kids.

It offers nothing new to the subject. It creates a mundane, melodramatic explanation, it annoys you with slow-paced, trite, uninteresting drama, and it takes no risks. It doesn't try to offer an innovative, thought-provoking look at these kids motives, and considering that Boll wrote and directed the film, a risk would've probably been a disaster. Well, at least it wouldn't have been an already established, pointless, boring recreation.

I forgave Boll for the three abominations that were HotD, AitD, and In the Name of the King. As I finished this movie, I actually forgot this was an Uwe Boll film. This was terrific and moving, but it does have its flaws.

Heart of America tells the tale of three high school students who are beaten by the jocks of the school. It is the last day of school and the movie is filled with flashbacks that develop the characters rather nicely. You love some, hate some, feel sympathetic to some, and some make you laugh. The story is filled with all the situations that could go wrong on the last day of school, a pregnant girl and her boyfriend trying to make her happy, a cheating boy friend, meth, abusive parents, and some other stuff that I won't spoil.

The acting was sub par at parts and the script was ultimately weak at points. Though, some parts were very well done.

The ending left me in a moral bind, who should I hate? Whose actions were justified? This is Uwe Boll's best movie, and that IS saying something considering that I would recommend this to anyone who wants to see a thought provoking, moral dilemmaing film.