...portrayal of a high school, ever?
It's pretty ridiculous.
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Witch-King: "Come at me bro!"
Eowyn: "I am no bro."
Gee, thanks for pointing that out. All this time, I thought it was a documentary.
shareYeah, I guess this would be the first time a movie was fantastical in some way...
Seriously though, it's not necessarily supposed to be a realistic portrayal of high school. If you read anything about the making of the film, you'd know it's a throwback to classic noir films, in a high school setting. Sorry you couldn't get over that and just enjoy the story.
I'm sorry, I'm IN high school, and seeing JGL walking around like a detective talking about intel and drop points and people getting murdered and football players being drug mules with their girlfriends helping out in the organization.
And seriously, "The Pin"? A freakin 20-something drug kingpin living at his mom's house with a walking cane? Where's the white cat that he should be stroking and where is his menacing scar?
I mean, I really wanted to like this movie, but what the hell. Couldn't even finish it. I only really got to the part where he gets taken to the Pin's house.
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Witch-King: "Come at me bro!"
Eowyn: "I am no bro."
I'm sorry, I'm IN high school, and seeing JGL walking around like a detective talking about intel and drop points and people getting murdered and football players being drug mules with their girlfriends helping out in the organization.
Where's the white cat that he should be stroking and where is his menacing scar?
Couldn't even finish it.
HarveyManfredinStJohn, I totally agree with you. How can you (metalninjacake) come onto a board to discuss a film when you reached roughly the mid point in the movie then switched off? This kills your credibility as a critic instantly. However, moving past that, the point you actually make is bizarre. Did you think realism was the target here? They have re-imagined a specific genre - film noir - by definition it isn't meant to be a realistic portrayal high school. The Pin's costume falls into the same category; it's an homage to Dark Shadows, a 60s show. I didn't know that, and I have no shame in admitting it. It's on this site - I found it in about 30 seconds of reading up on the film, but again, there's no shame in not checking that. However, to misjudge the tone of this film so hugely that you genuinely seem to believe that the attire of the Pin was the film maker's lazy shortcut to portraying the archetypal "bad guy" is pretty embarassing.
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Ahh, youth.
Back off! ... Way off!
"Where's the white cat that he should be stroking and where is his menacing scar?"
Actually that would've been awesome
If you want a realistic portrayal of kids running drugs see The Wire. Brick is fantasy.
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This film appealed to me as a comic fan. DC Comics has their "Elseworld" stories, in which they change up the backgrounds of some of their major characters to tell a different story than could otherwise be told. For example, Batman being around in the 1800's instead of modern times, so that they could pit him against Jack the Ripper. Or Superman having landed in Communist Russia instead of Smallville, Kansas so they could see how a Russian-"born" Superman would behave.
I very much viewed this as an Elseworld movie. A "what if" that took all of the tropes of noir and set it into a high school setting.
Without buying into that concept, the movie's going to be too unbelievable to be enjoyable. So the people who "get it" aren't being pretentious in their enjoyment of this film anymore than my friend is being pretentious when he says I just don't "get" his love for Harley Davidson motorcycles. And I really don't.
It's just a niche form of entertainment that happens to appeal to some and not to others.
I don't understand why some feel threatened by that.
Anyone who expects realism in a film these days is, well, unrealistic. CGI and F/X are a large part of most movie budgets. Dislike of a film because it lacks realism is lame. Documentaries are the only realistic films these days. Unless you watch them exclusively and this was your first foray into a film, your objection to this film fails.
You didn't understand the film; that's why you disliked it. Here's the explanation: it's a 1940s Film Noir, restaged in a high school with students and young people. The part of the cop is played by the principal of the school. That's the big secret and the reason you failed to comprehend the film. The dialogue is straight out of Dashiel Hammett.
Brendan's the PI, trying to solve the murder of his girlfriend. The laughs come from the juxtaposition of his mother serving juice to the Pin and the principal as the cop figure.
IMHO, Brendan was fatally wounded by his beatings. His death was forthcoming from the beginning, as it often was in a noir film. I'm unfamiliar with the novella, so I could be wrong about this. Please correct my error, someone who knows. Did Brendan die?
I feel like Brendan might be OK; he seemed to cough the worst when the stress was highest. Now everything is "settled" he might be able to live life again. The sickness from being thrashed equaled the sickness in his heart. You know?
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"Love means never having to say you're ugly." - the Abominable Dr. Phibes
What do you mean, unrealistic portrayal of high school? My high school was exactly like that.
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