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Initial Thought: I have been pondering the idea of this movie for several years. I still to do this day hear about it or see it on lists. So finally I decided to check it out. To hear that this is improvised should make for a truly different experience for this kind of film.
Characters/Acting: Most of the actors here weren't actors at the time and even go by the first names in the movie. Among them the only ones I definitely recognize are Alex Frost and John Robinson. The acting is fairly decent given that most of the people here aren't actors. I like that it shows more people are bullied rather than just the shooters. It just shows that some people aren't as influenced by society and have a higher tolerance than others. Some of the characters reactions to things were pretty awful. One guy gets shot and the teacher acts like he must be playing! I mean up until the shooting the performances weren't bad and then bam you suddenly have some shoddy performances. Also why do we have a random named character that pops up ten minutes before it's over? He has no value to the story. He doesn't leave the school and ends up trying to sneak up on of the shooters to immediately get shot. This is literally all he does. I felt some characters really didn't add much to the story. Then again you can't make everyone be a fleshed out character. I wondered what happen to a few characters who had unseen fates. I'm sure it's obvious, but I still kind of wondered.
Story: We see a typical day in a high school. The only thing is that this day will end up going extremely downhill for the students. I have to say this will be a truly heavy watch. This kind of reminds me of a movie called 2:37 where we get to learn about multiple characters and seem some of the same interactions happen from different perspectives. This incorporates the reasoning behind such actions as being the effect of bullying and violent video games. There are a few continuity errors like a seen without a couch suddenly has one moments later. A few things here didn't make a whole lot of sense. People get shot with only exit wounds and not entries. It looks very odd given how much blood is seen. The guns also sound odd and seem to shoot without a flash at some points. Some of this reminds me of a two part episode of Degrassi. The ending was a bit unexpected and then it just goes all ambiguous on you.
Directing/Writing: Gus Van Sant takes this subject head on as the director and writer. I am quite familiar with him as I've enjoyed Good Will Hunting, Milk, and Promised Land. He did however piss me off with that horrible Psycho remake. It tries to be an arthouse approach to a difficult subject. The script is good. The issue is with the effects and make up. If you are going to do a film like this you have to make sure everything isn't going to look or sound awful. It pretty much takes the heaviness away. I sure do hope that the "actors" are the ones who chose their reactions and not what the script asked for. If otherwise shame on you Gus Van Sant.
Final Thought: This is a pretty controversial topic. While the subject here is heavy I didn't think it was executed as well as it could have been. It has quite a few errors throughout. I'm sure if they ironed the whole thing out it could have been amazing. For the subject dealt with I can see why it's been a popular film. The way everything is executed is so poor though. I honestly didn't think it was all that good. It was a huge disappointment. To think this won at Cannes is unbelievable. I don't recommend this at all.
