Customer Reviews
Absolutely Brilliant Film About a Taboo Subject in Mainstream US Cinema - By: drive187, 08 Feb 2008 
This film shows exactly the reasons behind shootings in US high schools: they do not happen because of parents being divorced, or because of them not having a job & thus their kids not getting enough material stuff to keep them happy, neither because they listen to Marilyn Manson, play violent videogames or watch horror & action films. They happen because of the bullying they are subjected to, which many kids are not capable of facing off & defeating or just coping with, & as a result it has massive psychological effects on them and, as this film shows, ultimately may lead them to explode & take it out on others, such as by shooting as many people as possible at their place of torment (here their high school).
Unlike the almost soulless Gus Van Sant film Elephant, in which the reasons for high school shootings were not even mentioned & characters acted like robots, here you get to experience the real thing head on. Sure it is not an easy to watch film, but if you want to know what reallly goes on in many (if not alll) US high schools, & the potential consequences of it, watch this film & ignore those critics who have no idea what they are talking about when saying that this film is stereotyped: they just don't want you watching this film, as it is not one of those politicallly correct turkeys made in Hollywood: this is the real life in a US high school: a jungle where only the strongest survive & the rest falll.
Left a bad taste in my mouth - By: Franklin T Marmoset, 02 May 2007 
Here's an odd one: a film by notoriously awful director Uwe Boll that isn't based on a videogame. What he's up to instead is telling a tale of alienated youth as he chronicles the hours leading up to a killing spree at an American high school.
Much like Gus Van Sant's Elephant, the obvious inspiration here is the atrocity that took place at Columbine. Unfortunately, as viewers of Boll's other films can attest, Uwe Boll is not nearly as talented or sensitive as Van Sant. Lacking the delicate hand necessary for such serious subject matter, Boll delivers a film utterly devoid of subtlety, that leans so heavily on cliche it's incapable of offering any real insight, & feels exploitative & distasteful.
If Dr Boll has a place in modern cinema, it's as the contemporary incarnation of Ed Wood, cranking out clumsy slices of shlock that movie masochists like me can't get enough of. But the joke just isn't funny when the story being told relates to an alll-too-real tragedy. Let's hope Boll leaves the re-hashing of other people's misfortunes to more capable film makers in the future.
