I was instantly pleased to see "music by Elgar, Harvey, And Purcell.", bizarre because the non classic music is not given credit here, but immediately recognizable to me were these 3 names in classic music, which does play a strong role in this film,
This is really quite a remarkable film in it's stylistic presentation, which admittedly will not be to everyone's taste, but once accepted, which shouldn't be hard to do as it is a fairly unique style of shooting, a lot can be derived from it. In terms of shock value, you have to respect this film which has clearly overlooked the clumsy and obvious (showing lots of scenes of blood and gore) Most of the movie is filmed with very long wide shot screens, quite similar to the cold surgeons precision style of filming by michael haeneke, and by this, virtually all violence is obscured. Clay took the style into great perspective, giving it strong meaning combined with the material.
Obviously, this style of long shot scenes, never showing us EVERYTHING that's going on in terms of action, but showing us more in terms of the scene, will not appeal to some and become boring. I LOVE long shots as there is no camera trickery involved like in most mainstream films. I also love long scenes. The most fascinating aspect of this style is the way each scene is prepositioned, slowly driving forth a plot sequence where you are unsure of where it is going or if it even has a purpose, giving rise to your own instincts, but you feel very much a part of the scene yourself until finally the purpose is shown, which to me, leads to suspense. For example, a scene near the beginning where a woman is getting gas, and a man seems to be looking at her. All is unclear and seems pointless, but the next scene she is in the car and says "bastard" implying that he was veering at her in a creepy manner, Which first off is an ingenious way to let you put yourself in a woman's shoes, as much of the violence in here is directed against women.
The very best scene to me was the party scene where you have the 3 characters, the dj, Robert, and the Spanish owner (who was like a Harvey Keitel clone from Taxi Drvier) in the same room, as something horrible is happening in the room next. (What are they thinking.... will they do something? ...and then 8 minutes later it happens.) In this scene he shows slight surrealism as the lights dim slowly before the scene ends and the 2 advance as does the camera. Genius
The few bad points are, I think at times he got too involved with this style (the long shot of Robert jacking off with the door open) I also thought it was denying the viewer something without showing us the lads breaking into the house. Instead it was just suddenly "BOOM.... we're in your room... sorry to wake you, but now you're in hell." Also, though it is definitely plausible, it was pushy to have the search party for the missing girl to cross paths with the 3 boys who were drugged out in a park and about to soon commit a very violent crime themselves.
Another aspect is every time the TV is on, there is news reports of the war in Iraq, which is very interesting because this was around the time where the message was "We just toppled Saddam, we're heroes of the world." We know how that went. This can be interpreted tons of ways and people have said it seems contrived and indeed it is, but as it does not inherently have anything to do with the story it doesn't matter, and is simply interesting to have in there, gets our thoughts going, and adds to the bizarre way that this film seems documentary-like.
Untimately this film is a very strong and innovative character study, and I cannot understand how the acting can be criticized. If the dialogue seems trite in places, then it is, but it is not unrealistic and neither is the prospect of a teen, who seems to have a good future and good grades, falling out to violence or mediocrity, like others have said, likely simply because they have never been in that situation. I knew a girl in school who was a straight A student until the very last year where she couldn't handle the pressure. I'll never forget the phrase one of the "IN" kids said to me, who had made me an object of humour, but really was only in it for himself and not trying to degrade anyone. "are you going to let people push you around your whole life." It is a phrase very relevant to me and perhaps everyone, and certainly in this film, as the desire to be SOMEBODY, to not be pushed around can often lead to painful and senseless violence that will be regretted. Robert punching out the kid hogging the video camera, who is getting his own way when the teacher won't step in, was very exemplary of this and foreshadowing of the true crime to take place later.
In short, if you cant handle teens swearing, if you take no interest in their troubled lives and ultimately cannot handle the IDEA of sexual violence, as it is not even brutally shown, you need to give this film a miss and watch a film about grannies, or James Bond who has a hilarious wisecrack every time he brutally kills someone. These teens are 100% realistic, effectively giving us a lesson too strongly crafted for this film to be dismissed, as it's frankly much more intelligent, much more coherently put together, and had a much more plausible plot line than most films made, including some in the top 250 on this site.
