CinemaDude1

Stomach-turning, gratuitous torture for no apparent reason other than the filmmaker enjoys turning people's stomach. Don't be fooled by all the high-brow discussion throw in about Orwell, and Thomas Milton and all the other "literary" gobledegook supposedly to make seeing a 16 yr old being tortured (as it seemed to have fooled a bunch of the "professional critics." And don't be fooled by the long intro of seemingly lighthearted "slice of life" antics in the first 20 minutes of this story -- kids being bratty delinquents, teacher not being able to control the class, because on a dime it turns vicious and bloodthirsty and with not a moment's letup.. The best horror movies, even the lash and bash type, derive their shock from not letting the audience see when they are about to be assaulted with the violence. In this very disturbing foray into madness, there is no surprise shock, no anticipating when the horror will strike; when it starts, if just keeps on, unrelenting and in-you-face. And make no doubt about it, the assault is on you, the audience. Luckily we didn't see this in a theatre where one is captured and either you endure the gross unpleasantness and disgust, or you just get up and walk out. In our viewing at home, shortly into the horror, everyone watching shouts in unison "damn, fast forward past this garbage." Collectively, it simply became too intolerable in the extreme. I guess the original concept is, you are shown how obnoxious these kids are and because of this behavior, the audience would be ready and to somehow get a cathartic release seeing two boys tortured? Well, if that was the intent of the filmmakers, they were dead wrong. And this group of viewers was not some prissy uptight types -- this was a group of rowdy, macho rugby players who sit and cheer during SCREEN and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASECRE and they couldn't sit through this assault on humanity. Nope, sorry...it was a room full of Thumbs Down on this one.

The heart that went into this production is laudable. You can see the struggle that went into every shot, every scene...everyone giving it their all, but in the end, the weak, sometimes absurd storyline and the stilted dialog falls so flat, that it is embarrassing to watch because you are embarrassed FOR the cast, the director, all who are WAY out of their league. It is sad when it is obvious that everyone is working with sincere and good intentions and it spite of that, the final result simply is a real failure on all counts. It is really a waste of whatever the running time of this dog of a movie is. It was a painful watch.

At ever turn, the cruelty to this kid is grabs the viewer by the throat and won't leg go of that emotional choke-hold. But without even a moment of catharsis, not a moment of relief, the compassion that is felt for the child turns into a sort of steady-state anger that we are not give a reason for this cruelty or why it needs to be endured. The minimalist, underlying and pervasive theme is no great philosophical statement but just that life is cruel to the most vulnerable of us and to bad, make the best of it. The we are served up what amounts to child abuse that just goes on and one. Yes, pretty depressing stuff. Still, it is so well performed, paced and the characterizations by the leads are nothing short brilliant, that I would still have to recommend it; just make sure you are in a really REALLY positive, up mood. Don't go near it if you are even slightly depressed.