Heart of America

A look at the difficulties of high school life. The film takes place during a climatic last day of the school year and through ominous black and white flashbacks there are hints at the trouble that has been brewing.

Directed by the infamous Uwe Boll this is a surprisingly good film. While the acting is at times second rate and the hard rock soundtrack seems sorely misplaced during some moments, though not all, the film is pretty involving. Mainly through its flashback structure, the audience is placed hours away from a climatic event without knowledge of what will happen and bit by bit the past is revealed and we get an understanding of what is tragically imminent, kind of like in a Greek play.

There are also a few interesting shots - particularly the opening long take that ventures down a street including in and out of a house. The other major surprise is that Boll is at the helm. His crap video game adaptations are known for their brainlessness but this is significantly different and shows that he has (or at least had) some good film making ideas. The ending is also typical Boll - the film tries to outrun itself by turning into a big political statement and the catharsis seems underdeveloped for the characters and overly large for the film itself. And the kicker is that Boll uses - get this - narrated titles to make that statement. Though the presentation of media coverage was interesting and he should have stuck with just that as there is no need to state the obvious. It is that, and the few other annoyances, ultimately push this what could have been a good hard drama down to the "close but no cigar" category.

So Uwe Boll took a step in the right direction, but, since then, has somehow decided to take the road more traveled, crappy action movies, and that has made all the difference. 6/10

Rated R: violence, profanity, drug use, and a rape.

I forgave Boll for the three abominations that were HotD, AitD, and In the Name of the King. As I finished this movie, I actually forgot this was an Uwe Boll film. This was terrific and moving, but it does have its flaws.

Heart of America tells the tale of three high school students who are beaten by the jocks of the school. It is the last day of school and the movie is filled with flashbacks that develop the characters rather nicely. You love some, hate some, feel sympathetic to some, and some make you laugh. The story is filled with all the situations that could go wrong on the last day of school, a pregnant girl and her boyfriend trying to make her happy, a cheating boy friend, meth, abusive parents, and some other stuff that I won't spoil.

The acting was sub par at parts and the script was ultimately weak at points. Though, some parts were very well done.

The ending left me in a moral bind, who should I hate? Whose actions were justified? This is Uwe Boll's best movie, and that IS saying something considering that I would recommend this to anyone who wants to see a thought provoking, moral dilemmaing film.

In Uwe Boll's commentary on the DVD of "Alone in the Dark" he brags about how Ron Howard liked "Heart of America". I really have to wonder what Ron was thinking. Some might think of this film as bold for taking on the hot topic of school shootings, but others (including me) think of it as a travesty for badly dramatizing it. It is an intriguing, important topic, but I've never seen a film successfully tackle it (No, I'm not a fan of "Elephant"). I was in high school when most of the school shootings were happening, so I feel a kind of connection to the subject.

This film follows various high school kids through their last day of school. We cut between various pre-class conversations in cars, bedrooms, offices, etc. For every character there's a clearly (and mechanically) laid out conflict. Among them are a student who deals drugs, a couple of students who's relationship is ending, a tweaker student, a group of bullies, a teacher who is overly harsh on his students, and the two misfit kids planning the shooting. There are lots and lots of flashbacks (in black and white) explaining how things got this way for the misfit kids.

Clint Howard shows up as one of the shooter kids' emotionally abusive father. Jurgen Prochnow plays the school principal. And for no reason at all, Michael Pare appears as the teacher in a performance that reminds us all why he's on the celebrity Z list. None of these characters seem all that convincing and the dialog comes straight from an after school special (plus swearing, of course). The writers don't realty seem to understand their teenage subjects, resulting in the same major problem as "Elephant": you don't really come to care about the characters. Flimsy plot combined with irritating characters does not result in a compelling film.

This subject deserved a much better treatment. However, this is probably the height of schlock director Uwe Boll's career. The characters are irritating, and some of them you wouldn't mind seeing killed, but that's more than you can say for "House of the Dead" or "Alone in the Dark". That said, it is a tedious, insultingly dumb movie which I doubt anyone could benefit from watching.

Jurgen Prochnow and Michael Pare star as a principal and teacher of an average high school that has a columbine style shooting that will take the lives of many students of course along the way we will run into characters who deserve to die and those who don't, the main point of interest is Prochnow and Pare who don't really strike one as the faculty type. I myself teach and well for one, this movie fails to convince me as anything resembling reality. Whether it be with teachers or students. Michael Pare's character plays a teacher who openly mocks his student's work. If such a thing ever happened you would be suspended or even dismissed because we encourage, not laugh at a student's work. Okay, I don't teach English (Pretty sure you can tell, whoever has glanced at my reviews) however it is pretty basic that all a teacher can take points off for, is grammar errors rather than content of such material. At least at high school level. Anyway the movie itself fails to convince one of the students and their plights because it is far too overwrought in the humiliation sequences. These humiliation sequences that these kids put the shooters through is something more at home in Last House On The Left rather than a school yard. Kids do not force other kids to take their clothes off and eat feces, rather they beat up on them. A far better film wouldn't have had any motivation of the killer's part and therefore it would feel more subtle and honest. There are some strong sequences such as the final showdown between the shooter and his tormentor but it is treated as just desserts and I for one can't bring myself to say that this has something rational to say if it is treated like an action movie. However despite a few bizarre moments of camera angles, such as the part which is supposed to simulate a drug haze, Heart Of America is Boll's most competent effort I've seen and although the results are fairly watchable, It is quite obvious that Boll is oblivious in telling a story. He lacks subtleness and that is a big flaw in all his films. Also Prochnow and Pare as principal and teacher? Did Uwe Boll see Eddie And The Cruisers and Das Boot?

* * out of 4-(Fair)

As everyone realizes by now, this is probably Boll's best work, but that's hardly a compliment considering his abhorrent filmography. This one detracts from his usual game-to-movie adaptation, and it's basically a remake of Columbine. It tries to create insight regarding the shooting, but it's mostly just banal sentimentality with copycat flair, one-dimensional, predictable characters with conventional, exaggerated teenage problems, and slow-paced, pointless black-and-white sequences to show us the 'troubled' past of these kids.

It offers nothing new to the subject. It creates a mundane, melodramatic explanation, it annoys you with slow-paced, trite, uninteresting drama, and it takes no risks. It doesn't try to offer an innovative, thought-provoking look at these kids motives, and considering that Boll wrote and directed the film, a risk would've probably been a disaster. Well, at least it wouldn't have been an already established, pointless, boring recreation.