This is an interesting detective flick that could have been much better. The story is a contemporary twist on the standard crime drama where the diabolical murderers try to outsmart the wily detective. The contemporary twist is that the murderers are two high school students who are brilliant but bored, so they decide to plan the perfect murder and play a cat and mouse game with the police.
Therein lies the flaw. It is plausible that high school students could go on a killing spree because they are angry, frustrated or alienated (we have unfortunately seen too much of this phenomenon), but boredom doesn't produce this level of methodical evil. Also, when teens like this snap, the result is messy, not cold and calculated as depicted here.
Director Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female) presents these kids as normal high school students who simply decided that their brand of mischief would be murder. It might have been more believable if they showed some sociopathic tendencies, but other than the murder, they seem like regular kids. The union of two kids who are so different, the intropsective loner Justin (Michael Pitt) and the popular rich kid Richard (Ryan Gosling), also fails to resonate. They supposedly met when Justin was tutoring Richard, which is utterly implausible given the fact that Richard is portrayed as being extremely bright himself. Also, these types of kids generally have a natural disdain for one another in real life.
The script also bogs down with unnecessary plot elements like Cassie's (Sandra Bullock) mysterious past and a relationship with her partner. This is an attempt to develop Cassie in a way that has little bearing on the main storyline, and the subplot klunks annoyingly away like a square wheel.
The gathering of forensic evidence and the deductive reasoning that follows is fascinating along with the boys manipulation of the evidence to point the detectives in the wrong direction. Cassie's intuitive approach to the evidence is also well scripted.
The acting by the boys is well done, with both creating believable characters. Pitt is moody, sensitive and introspective and renders a tortured character that tries to appear far more confident than he really is. Gosling gives Richard a cocky bravado that reminded me of James Caan. He creates a character that is manipulative and cunning.
Sandra Bullock is a terrific actress, but she seems out of place in this role. Part of the problem is that her character is given too much excess baggage with which to to deal. She plays Cassie far too tentatively considering this is a female characters that other cops call "the hyena". She seems intimidated by confrontations. She is completely dominated in the confrontation with the teenage Richard, but she is also weak in scenes with her boss and her partner. She is much better in the subplot regarding her anguish over her past and the uneasy relationship she has with her partner. Unfortunately, this is the most irrelevant component of the script.
This film has some interesting elements, but the pieces fail to come together. Bullock's middling performance along with an unbelievable story reduce this film to mediocrity. I rated it a 6/10.
Therein lies the flaw. It is plausible that high school students could go on a killing spree because they are angry, frustrated or alienated (we have unfortunately seen too much of this phenomenon), but boredom doesn't produce this level of methodical evil. Also, when teens like this snap, the result is messy, not cold and calculated as depicted here.
Director Barbet Schroeder (Single White Female) presents these kids as normal high school students who simply decided that their brand of mischief would be murder. It might have been more believable if they showed some sociopathic tendencies, but other than the murder, they seem like regular kids. The union of two kids who are so different, the intropsective loner Justin (Michael Pitt) and the popular rich kid Richard (Ryan Gosling), also fails to resonate. They supposedly met when Justin was tutoring Richard, which is utterly implausible given the fact that Richard is portrayed as being extremely bright himself. Also, these types of kids generally have a natural disdain for one another in real life.
The script also bogs down with unnecessary plot elements like Cassie's (Sandra Bullock) mysterious past and a relationship with her partner. This is an attempt to develop Cassie in a way that has little bearing on the main storyline, and the subplot klunks annoyingly away like a square wheel.
The gathering of forensic evidence and the deductive reasoning that follows is fascinating along with the boys manipulation of the evidence to point the detectives in the wrong direction. Cassie's intuitive approach to the evidence is also well scripted.
The acting by the boys is well done, with both creating believable characters. Pitt is moody, sensitive and introspective and renders a tortured character that tries to appear far more confident than he really is. Gosling gives Richard a cocky bravado that reminded me of James Caan. He creates a character that is manipulative and cunning.
Sandra Bullock is a terrific actress, but she seems out of place in this role. Part of the problem is that her character is given too much excess baggage with which to to deal. She plays Cassie far too tentatively considering this is a female characters that other cops call "the hyena". She seems intimidated by confrontations. She is completely dominated in the confrontation with the teenage Richard, but she is also weak in scenes with her boss and her partner. She is much better in the subplot regarding her anguish over her past and the uneasy relationship she has with her partner. Unfortunately, this is the most irrelevant component of the script.
This film has some interesting elements, but the pieces fail to come together. Bullock's middling performance along with an unbelievable story reduce this film to mediocrity. I rated it a 6/10.