Raising the Bar

I'm not sure what the director was thinking...for a gymnastics film the camera angles were so off and didn't show anything?! Why are there so many long closups on hands and oddly framed shots without the gymnastics in shot?

This movie was extremely similar to the 2006 movie "Stick it", but not as good.

You know, you see these little films in the list and decide to give them a try, only to be disappointed. Somehow, with Raising the Bar, I did stick it out till the end, but it was dismal. The acting was so bad. And the energy was very low. I would not recommend it. There are plenty of other low budget movies that are a better use of time.

There's a fantastic scene in The Big Lebowski, where the enraged Jesus Quintana (John Turturro) screams "Laughable, man!" That's the only thing I could think of when watching this "movie". I surely didn't have high expectations, but I didn't expect anything as bad as what I saw.

Cheap production is all fine, not every movie needs to be a Hollywood blockbuster. But there's a minimum to expect from an indie film. Like... a half decent script. A story line that isn't so unnecessarily convoluted you give up after 20 minutes. Actors who can actually act. Dialogues that don't make you cringe every time someone on screen opens their mouth. Music that doesn't sounds like something out of a pilot for a TV series from the 1980's. But even with all that absent, this is a gymnastics movie. So surely you can show us some great gymnastics routines. Unfortunately, since the actresses aren't gymnasts, the camera has to resort to the most weird angles to obscure the lack of technique, and where stunt doubles are used - to obscure the faces. So not even that.

A laughable effort. 2/10

I watched this with my kids, and although I have seen some bad productions, this has to take the cake. There isn't a single feature of this film I could mention in a positive term. The script, the cast, the acting, the cinematography are all shamefully poor. So much so it was cringe worthy to watch. This film should be used to illustrate how not to make a film. The dialogs were pathetic, the acting amateurish, and could go on and on. No only was is this film spectacularly bad, but also very sloppy. One of the main characters, who is a gymnast, was clearly overweight, her physic didn't remotely resemble that of an athlete. Also, in a scene the main character Kelly starts her high bar routine with one hair do and finishes with another. AVOID!