Where to begin on this piece of shit. I have read that many people have been impressed with Uwe Boll's Heart of America, his first true venture into the dramatic. What ensues is a film that is so insanely over-dramatizes of the horrible events leading up to, and including a school shooting. The viewer is introduced to an ensemble of characters the morning of the school shooting. Using a ton of flashbacks, we learn about these characters and why they are who they are. The biggest problem with this film is the absolutely terrible script that uses every stereotype in the book to create this exaggerated and quite frankly laughable sentimentality. EVERY character is a walking cliche, from the stoners to the jock to the nerd- one dimensional characters aplenty. The film tries to hard to capture every aspect of adolescnes (bullying, virginity, unplanned pregnancy, drugs, rape, bad parenting, etc) to the point of it all becoming just silly and over stuffed. I also enjoyed how the script felt the need to remind the viewer a million times that it was the last day of school. Of course, Boll opts to use black & white photography for the flashback sequences (CLICHE as fuck), while an overabundance of music is used in some poor attempt to illicit more emotion from the audience. Boll's attempt to question the moral dilemmas and complications which arise is rather weak as well-using the Bully character of Rick, who has a change of heart towards the end of the film, yet dies by the hands of the bullied. I get what he was going for, but it simply doesn't work to the degree he was hoping for, though it is a good point I suppose. I will say that from a purely technical standpoint (editing and cinematography) this has got to be Uwe Boll's best film. There are some surprisingly well done sequences, using tracking shots, long takes, etc. but it doesn't save the film by any means. Uwe Boll is a lighting rod for people to hate on, and I find it pretty funny that a majority of people who do so, think this is his best film. I much prefer Boll stick too the action/horror/comedy genre as a film like POSTAL, for example was great, ridiculous fun. When he ventures into drama.. Yikes. 1/10
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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