New Port South

New Port South is the kind of movie you have to see for yourself. I know that if it had been marketed more, it would have been A LOT more successful. When my friend and I went to see it, there were only four people in the theater. We're 14 year old girls, the other two were a middle-aged couple. (The older couple didn't like it too much.) The man even went as far as to say, "Now I know why there were only four people here..." I completely disagree with him. I loved the movie, it was very thought-provoking, and I didn't understand it until the ending quote. It's basically about a group of students who decides that their school system isn't right, so they go against it, playing tricks and showing the administration that the school population can think for themselves. Any student can definitely relate to New Port South because every once in a while, every student feels like getting back at "the system."

John Hughes can't seem to get out of the 'high school movie phase'. The man has made some great pieces, but it's time to move on. His newest release, New Port South, was by far his smallest. It tells the story of three high school rebels who lash out at the administration.

Currently, I am a high school student. And I have seen students lash out against the teachers, the sports teams, whatever. But everything I have seen pales in comparison to what these three do. The posters, the demonstrations, the movies. It's all very intense, and honestly, I would be afraid to attend a high school that housed these types of teenagers.

But if you're looking for a last minute weekend flick with a, well, interesting soundtrack, I would recommend New Port South, that is, if the New Release rack is empty.

"John Hughes' son wrote a high school drama! Wow!" I thought as I checked the flick's info here on IMDb, late on a Saturday night, having found myself watching the opening credits on BBC2.

I've just finished watching it, and sadly it was downhill from there on. Arguably you can't spoil a film this poor, but I'll leave the spoilers out of this review...

There's an awful lot of style over very little substance: unfortunately the style hasn't dated too well in the eight years since its release. As for the substance, the film tries to pose an interesting look at the nature of control in society through the microcosm of school-life; but beneath the shiny veneer, a remotely meaningful or relevant argument fails to materialise. Characters are painted in childishly broad strokes, falling into the kind of generic stereotypes the writer's father sought to question in Breakfast Club.

Director Kyle Cooper does a decent job keeping the pace up (perhaps relying a little too much on montages of information, which soon becomes a tiresome device, but at least pushes the story along), but his efforts don't sufficiently detract from the poor script and bizarre casting (how anyone is supposed to side with 'Maddox', when Blake Shields gurns and glowers his way through the part, I just can't understand), not to mention the numerous gaping plot holes (I'm all for creative license, but when the "bad guys" know the identities of the "good guys" making their lives a misery, but fail to act in any way to stop them, you really have to wonder why this script didn't undergo another few re-drafts before production - did Daddy even read it?).

I'm sure a younger audience might get some enjoyment from this film (and all power to them), but they're really better off sticking with Hughes Sr.'s high school output, and if the idea of school-time rebellion is what really appeals, the 1968 classic "If..." is a much more satisfying examination of the subject.

I really enjoy teen rebellion movies and have studied quite a lot of them this year for my A-Level media studies class. Although this was not one of my syllabus movies i saw it on T.v one night and thought it was really cleverly made and hugely under-rated. I mean, yeah, there have been a lot of these genre of movies made but this is different and contains other art forms within the movie, I mean how creative were those posters? Well I have told a lot of people about it and they have said it is really good so maybe it is young person thing, as I would say this film is directed for a teenage audience, but I would also say that if you are very big into films then you would have the knowledge to say whether it has been made well or not. I have Lent the DVD to my media lecturer so when he tells me what he thinks I will comment again. Peace.

About five minutes in, and I saw where this was heading. Bunch of high school kids get annoyed by the school's administration and thoughts of rebellion start fomenting. I said to my girlfriend: if it gets below a 5 on IMDb, I'll go and read a book. It got 5.0, so she persuaded me to go on watching. What are the good things? Well, it is a good thing this film does not have a story, because you would surely be distracted from it by the editing. It's like the student's drawing that was torn up by one of the teachers, all the footage for this film was cut up in a freak accident involving a meat-grinder, and left half the stock destroyed, with the other half spliced into two-second bits. Even in a ten-second scene of the local TV news, there are about six cuts and three different angles. And then there are the montages. These are all set to electronic music, which forewarns you of yet another montage, so that like Pavlov's dog you start cringing every time you hear it, which is about every three minutes. Oh, I was supposed to say what's good about this film. Well, the film was shot very well, with a nice color palette, that nicely matched the emotional content - such as there was - of the scenes. Okay, now with the film's major flaw, and it wasn't the story, or lack thereof. The director made that fatal mistake of leading you astray about people and situations, not by clever storytelling, but by being highly selective about what to show about the main characters. That's just cheating. I guess he did it in order to make the central character more likable. But it just became plain annoying. If the story is full of holes, it's no good trying to patch it up by misdirecting the viewer. And often there wasn't even any point to it. And then the ending. Basically, the main villain of the peace turns out be an okay guy, if a coward. Plus it turns what seemed to be the whole point of the movie, that you should stand up for a just cause on its head, by the already mentioned misdirection, and makes it into a point about the nature of revolutions, that was already made, and much better, by animal farm. It also committed what I call the Bill Cosby sin: no matter how things may seem at first, in the end adults are always right, and children always wrong. And let's face it: unless you're me, that's just not true.