96 Minutes

One of the things that might bring the movie down for you (as it did for me), was/is the acting. It is very crucial to feel or at least be with those characters along the ride (no pun intended). The movie does not achieve that goal wholly in my humble opinion. So while this is dramatic (and the storyline with flashbacks shouldn't be confusing, it's actually adding to the suspense up to a point), it fails to really completely suck you in.

Is reality that bleak though, is what some people seem to ask, and the answer can be yes. It depends where you live and what you consume. I was a bit mad at first, because the movie showed one character playing a war game and this character is hostile. It feeds into clichés, which isn't really good. Fortunately they also showed, that other factors are playing a role in the development of ones character. Decent overall, worth a watch I'd say

This movie follows four young people struggling in their own way with their education. The main male lead is a senior high school student (Evan Ross) who grew up in a terrible environment, and tries to escape his "fate" (or what people expect him to become) by studying hard and trying to get a good education. An excellent, excellent movie! The two leading actors (and most others) just did a great job! We saw the part of the movie crew at a premiere; they explained that beyond the heavy tension of the movie, they actually had a hard time not spending their time laughing with each other... This totally did not show up on the screen, the movie is tensed throughout and the acting (again) just excellent. The directing is just sublime as well, excellent shot decisions that gives the proper atmosphere to the movie with a lot of close up shots to focus on the characters.

I saw this at sxsw and it's been hard for me to decide if I really liked this movie. It was shot very well and the director obviously knew what she was doing but the exposition in the writing ruins the story for me. Everything is just made too obvious and is too cliché. The actors were okay, but they didn't really help this problem. It could have been much better and I really liked the idea of the story, but I think that it was just too poorly written. There was one scene where there's a black kid walking home from school with his backpack on and is randomly stopped and basically beaten and searched by cops who are yelling at him and being bad cops and drive off when they don't find anything on him. Then a black lady in a house shakes her head and closes the blinds. I hate cops too, but they don't actually do stuff like that in the middle of the day. Not since like the 1960's anyway. It's just bad writing and way too expositional and it really takes you out of the story and to me ruined it. It's like the writer wouldn't let you think for yourself about the movie, everything needs to be explained to the audience in very simple terms and I don't like that. But I think a lot of people will like this movie.

This film kept me on the edge of my seat! It cuts back and forth between four young people who are all struggling with adulthood responsibilities while being from different ethnic, social, and economic backgrounds. The contrast is really what made it interesting, and how they all came together on this terrible night.

The performance by Evan Ross won him an a much deserved award at SXSW, and Jonathan Michael Trautmann also did a wonderful job. His presence on screen was frightening, and I was actually unsure of what his character was capable of. Brittany Snow is also worth mentioning, as I felt this was a very different role for her and she wore it well.

All around, this film is definitely worth a watch. It's based on a true story and says a lot about adolescence, poverty, and the social classes of today.

I was fortunate enough to catch this at SxSW a few weeks ago and it's continued to stick with me. I can see the obvious comparison to CRASH although it's a bit unfounded as this movie really didn't seem to be about race at all to me. It just felt like it was about four kids struggling to make their way. Four kids who were all searching for something. Sure their circumstances were different and so they were searching for different things, but what unified them was that they were all just looking to be accepted by their families or their peers. To me, that's a universal story and one that lots of people can relate to. Evan Ross and Brittany Snow gave really amazing performances - well beyond what we've seen of them previously and both stand out to me a real talents to watch. The movie isn't perfect and I'm sure some will find it to be on the nose, but that's only because so many people don't have the life experience to know that this is the way it goes. I've worked in a shelter for homeless youth for several years and the stories these kids tell me are not too dissimilar. I would encourage all of those who see the themes as stereotypical to get outside of their own box for 2 minutes and spend some time with those who will you give example after example of how the youth in this country still struggle with the same things as they did 10, 20, and 30 years ago.