Pariah

This movie should be treated as a pariah for anyone in search of entertainment. It looks as though the whole thing has been thrown together in the space of a couple of days by a bunch of film students to cash in on the success of American History X.

The main character's black girlfriend gets raped by a gang of neo-nazi's. He is forced to watch it happening, but is not capable of helping her. She later blames him for this and commits suicide. Of course this has its results on his further actions. He infiltrates in the gang and hopes to have his own revenge. A thing he didn't realize is that he gets sucked in to these gang-activities himself.... Although very poorly directed, I thought the acting was good and the story interesting enough. Those who 'enjoyed' American History X, will appreciate this movie.

This movie has to be the worst film ever seen by mankind! I looked up the people that quote on the box and they don't seem to exist (I was already wondering what idiot said "A Clockwork Orange for the Nineties") The Story is simply not there; there is absolutely ZERO storyline and the acting is incredibly bad, amazingly bad, so baadd. Next to that, it doesn't make sense!

All in all, go see it and redefine "bad movie" for yourself.

I saw Pariah on television and I thought it was a TV-movie made in the early 90s. I was quite shocked to then discover that it had been made a recently as 1998, after both American History X (AHX) and Romper Stomper. Had it have been made earlier I would have forgiven its amateurish feel and, to be frank, embarrassing handling of the plot and story line.

A good way of seeing how ineffective this movie is, is to compare it with the things it is trying to emulate. The story itself (for those unaware) is lifted directly from The Crow by J O'Barr. If you want to see the same plot idea handled in an incredibly powerful, subtle and truly masterful way then read the comic (not the film). I'd class Pariah's handling of the neo-Nazi aspect as being more like Romper Stomper in the way it superficially deals with the matter. However Romper Stomper does it so much better.

To focus on the movie itself, it's all very poor. The acting is poor, the scripts are poor, the directing poor....the whole thing is just poor. Some scenes had me flinching with embarrassment they were so bad. Despite the fact that I'm slating it, I still gave it 4/10. If it's on television and you have nothing better to do then watch it, it'll pass the time, it's not *that* bad. But if you enjoy the violent neo-Nazi romanticising movie then watch Romper Stomper as it's better. If you enjoy the revenge theme then read (or, to a lesser extent, watch) The Crow. I don't really want to draw any comparisons with AHX as that movie is in a different league and is one of my all-time favourite movies. AHX is the thinking man's Romper Stomper....I wouldn't even want to say what AHX is in relation to Pariah.

Pariah is not a bad film. It has as its main good points a nice set of strong performances and an interesting plot. On the other hand, it is a very low budget, bad directed film with a very cheapish look and fell. Watch it at your own risk.