New Port South

I came to NEW PORT SOUTH expecting a surrogate movie about the Columbine school massacre similar to Gus Van Sant's ELEPHANT and certainly the synopsis in the TV guide stating that a student sociopath rebels against the system did give me that impression but this is a very boring movie where little happens so consider yourself warned

The story is about Maddox , a Chicago high school student who decides to strike back at what he perceives to be an authoritarian regime . The major problem is that the character is underwritten and the actor who plays him Blake Shields is unable to embellish any script deficiencies . You have the gut feeling that Maddox should have the evil charisma of Hitler , Saddam or Bin Laden but he never comes across as anything more than a petulant truculent teenager and it's impossible to believe he could rally any disciples . The subtext of you overthrow one manipulative authoritarian regime only to replace it with another manipulative regime is too obvious which means NEW PORT SOUTH is an entirely unconvincing drama that's not worth going out of your way to see

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.

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.

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.

The thing about New Port South is that it has kinda a cool build up but just lets if fall over in the end. Its like if you work really hard and save up money for your girlfriends Christmas present and she finds out your saving money so you say 'ah.... never mind Christmas'. If you have seen it, you know what I mean. The soundtrack is the computer- electric drum type thing which sounds like it was almost on a Linkin Park cd. The acting was OK, and again the story was neat but loose ends and actors that haven't been in a high school since Ace of Base had a hit make me wish that John Hughes talked to his son (??) about how to end a high school movie and then did the exact opposite.