Firecrackers

The beginning ten minutes are strong, but the rest of the film does not go anywhere. And the main characters literally don't go anywhere either. It is slow, boring and frustrating. The two girls don't evoke any sympathies at all, which should be central to this plot.

Lou (Michaela Kurimsky) and Chantal (Karena Evans) are teenagers in an unnamed small town in Ontario. As they are living lives at the lower end of the social order , they work toward a goal to move away - maybe New York, maybe western Canada. Complications happen along the way.

For a small-scale film, the characterizations are impressive. Other small roles stand out as well especially members of Lou's family including her troubled mother (Tamara Leclair) and her younger brother (Callum Thompson) who is showing early signs of being gay or transgender.

Kurimsky stands out as someone who has just had enough of her circumstances and does as much as she can to go beyond them. Even when Lou's actions go too far, it's still tempting to cheer for her regardless.

Sometimes, "Firecrackers" is marred by occasional mumbling. There is also an incident near the end that was just too predictable. But otherwise, writer/director Jasmin Mozaffari has created a story in which each moment (aside from the one mentioned) is unpredictable. It has a flow that is as wild as the people involved in it. - dbamateurcritic

Are two lead actresses (Evans, Kurimsky) have very limited acting backgrounds, but did well, perhaps because their roles as older teens not happy w/pretty much everything except each other (well, most of the time) were natural fits. An indicator of the turmoil & trouble they go through w/parents, boyfriends as they try to escape town is dialogue in which four letter obscenties & similar words comprise 40% of the screen time; add in others (mostly males) it jumps to about 60%. Setting was low income; low education, gritty in your face. Ending not clear, but seems that leaving doesn't remove the source of the problems.

Where to begin reviewing this disastrous film? First of all, do we really need another movie about kids acting badly? It's been over done, and done much better than this. The writing is absolutely atrocious. Nothing original here. And the dialogue. Is it "edgy" when the kids can't complete a sentence without using the F-bomb at least once?

The acting is pretty mediocre. Not terrible, just nothing out of the ordinary. And don't get me started on the camerawork. Okay, I'll start. It looks like it was filmed with an iPhone. I know, that's supposed to make it look slice-of-lifey. FAIL. Honestly it just makes it hard to watch

I could keep going but let me leave it at this. Once again, it got a 6.0 rating because friends and family boosted the ratings. That's petty obvious. I rarely quit a movie half way through but in this case I made an exception. What an epic waste of time.

--MovieJunkieMark.

I love Larry Clark movies and the whole genre of 'real' teen movies, which this movie fits into. But Firecrackers is boring, the characters aren't interesting, and there's nothing disturbing about it. It's just bleh. It would look real if the actresses didn't look like actresses, but that's the best thing I can say for it.