Threat is not a perfect film. It is a flawed hodgepodge of scenes that look like in some cases they were shot months if not years apart on whatever film stocks happened to be lying around. It is probably one of the least refined, most unglossy films to be released this decade. That said, the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. If you think that a film is only revolutionary by blowing up buildings or spouting off Pennywise-lyrics as rhetoric, then this movie probably isn't for you. But, at a time when America is more polarized than its been since the Vietnam War if not the Civil War, a social critique like the one in Threat is probably more revolutionary than just about anything else on the DVD shelves today. All that said, it's pretty obvious that the film is from a neophyte film-making team and it is often too earnest (occasionally cringe-worthy). Plus it's ridiculously rough around the edges. But that's what you get when you see a guerrilla film that's been carved out of concrete. IMHO, some of the negative commentators here may have been looking for the wrong things in Threat. It is not a movie about being straightedge or being hardcore. It takes place in the hardcore scene and has characters who are straightedge, but it's a movie with complex characters who suffer for their flaws and for behaving like zealots. It's weird to see a movie with straightedge characters that isn't about being straightedge, since it is a little known subculture. But I haven't seen one ad saying "the first movie about straightedge!" so I don't think this film intends to sensationalize the culture one way or the other. This film shows characters going from being ordinary kids on the block to doing horrendous things, and I personally felt empathy for them the whole way. Threat is different from films like Menace II Society where everyone is apologetic at the end. Threat isn't about redemption, it's about accepting damnation, and that's pretty cool in this Hollywood world.
