17 reviews
This movie had all the right ingredients for an amazing diamond in the rough. However, it falls short with it's endless lists of tired clichés that come off as another "adult's" perception of teenage-hood.
This movie isn't totally hopeless though. Douglass Smith and Kris Lemche steal the show with their opposing personalities: Cold, collected, reflective, intellectual philosopher(Smith) and rabid, hedonistic, irrational, desperate.(Lemche) Sadly, that's about where the shining ends.
The movie tries way too hard to pull off the 'The life of teenagers: XTREME, XTREME, XTREME' card. It's best moments lie in the most subtle scenes of self-contemplating, and views of the human psyche.
Long story short- could've been amazing. Didn't pull it off. A pure rent at best.
This movie isn't totally hopeless though. Douglass Smith and Kris Lemche steal the show with their opposing personalities: Cold, collected, reflective, intellectual philosopher(Smith) and rabid, hedonistic, irrational, desperate.(Lemche) Sadly, that's about where the shining ends.
The movie tries way too hard to pull off the 'The life of teenagers: XTREME, XTREME, XTREME' card. It's best moments lie in the most subtle scenes of self-contemplating, and views of the human psyche.
Long story short- could've been amazing. Didn't pull it off. A pure rent at best.
- ZacharyLovesYou
- Dec 2, 2006
- Permalink
I got to see this movie in the Asheville Film Festival, towards the end of 2004. The description grabbed me, guy takes a camera to school to film his last days leading up to his suicide.... What I witnessed was simply extraordinary.... I personally believe, every parent should be forced to watch this movie, because it breaks down the issues of Child Suicide and the mentality that goes along with it, and what it can cause. Being not too far removed from my teenage years, I understood things like the Columbine Masacre and other such child tragedies. This movie finally brought that into the spotlight, and if you really watched this movie, you will get a glimpse at the mind set. It ends with the perfect political statement. "I hope this wakes you up, because if this doesn't, then something else, far worse will happen that will...." My only regret, a woman got up beside me after the movie was over and said, "Well, now to try to get THAT out of my head." I should have stopped her and said, "No, don't force this from your head, because if you do, you'll be forced to relive it...we all will...." All that said, I'm almost positive that the movie will never be picked up and distributed. It is controversial on a whole nother realm, because it will make everyone see what they themselves turn a blind eye to.... And if there is one thing American's can't stand, is seeing the truth of what is in front of them....
I honestly have to wonder if many of the other reviewers have seen the same film as I. Unfortunately, I went into this film with very high expectations, as the premise and the content warnings seemed very much like they would deliver something compelling and extreme. The main red flag however, is that this was a low budget movie from a director who made no further films. This can sometimes mean something brilliant, but in this case, the film just barely steps above the bar of "cheap amateurish independent straight to video film".
The Writing Style/Plot Development
One important thing to note is that this film is very dialogue driven, mainly with the monologues by the characters to the camera. I know well about the writing process, and as in plays, when your story is so heavily dialogue based, you're at a great risk of making your characters seem schizophrenic, because that dialogue is ultimately based on the episodic mood swings of the writer over a long period of time, crunched down into the short period of time within the material. The foremost problem with the material delivered by these young actors is that really, it sounds like dialogue written by a balding middle aged man who THINKS he knows how teenagers talk, feel, and rationalize, which is packed with tonnes of whiny pseudo intellectual nonsense, which because they're TEENAGERS, never goes full circle and often ends in vanity, triteness, or ambiguity, so in most cases a REAL concise reason for committing suicide is never established, and how each character's "inner thoughts" contradict from scene to scene shows that the writer himself did not BELIEVE the dialogue, and thus was unable to make it coherent and credible.
Actors/Characters
My first impression was that the directing was bad, but the story and idea were good. I began to think twice about this in how the instigator of the whole premise "Scott", tells his very eclectic group of friends about his idea one by one, who ALL think it's so cool and amazing, and that they too MUST commit suicide along with him. The young actors were fairly mediocre, aside from Kris Lemche as "Patrick" who was the only one really able to create a compelling character with some sort of screen presence. I personally did not like any of the characters, especially the main protagonist "Scott" who speaks like a programmed robot, so filled with technical analytical phrases, that he only comes across as a caricature, and his friends have a bit of this too. Even though they're supposed to be non mainstream, in this film, a hodgepodge of sub cultures and social backgrounds so that ALL BASES of teen anxiety are covered, it's hard to imagine anyone being that out of touch with the world they live in, and moreover, "Scott" is able to rationally convince the school bully to return their camera, that he stole, with this very irritating way of speaking.
The Directing/Scene Layout
The directing, combined with a very stagey unravelling of events is what I found amazing that so many other reviewers were able to overlook. The classroom scenes, with the protagonist goofing off with his camera were very badly handled. That just won't happen without the smart ass students as well as the teacher getting in your face about it, and most teachers would confiscate the camera, but no one says a word. Picture having a conversation on your telephone in a classroom. How ridiculous would that be? Also, Patrick's character, spying on everyone with his camera, looking up girl's dresses, masturbating in the girl's washroom, without being seen, heard, or getting in trouble, not to mention abducting a screaming 10 year old in a crowded supermarket, hauling her into the washroom where he rapes and kills her without being seen, heard or caught, is simply just not realistic.
Suicidal Motives
The real crux of the issue however is the suicidal motives of the characters and how they were handled. of the 4 characters who state their cases for WHY they plan to kill themselves: Scott: inner freedom. Sandy: testament to true love. Trudi: domestic discord. Patrick: homicidal urges? None of these are given much background or ANY aside from Trudi's case, though still not convincingly, who ridiculously enough, in all 6 of them is the only one who is shown to have typical problems of depression, the kind you see in most real life suicide cases. The characters, Rick and Cody, who we are given no inner insight into, are wasted, and seem very full of life rather than depression, Particularly Rick, who in this film represents typical quasi hip-hop culture, who doesn't seem to fit in with this group of people at all.
Closing Notes/Film Message
I will close by touching on one of the very last phrases spoken into a camera by the character "Scott" and showing truly how badly the people involved in the making of this film do NOT understand their subject. "Do you want to know the real truth? I did it because I was bored. The number one killer of teenagers today isn't drugs or alcohol... It's just plain boredom.... AND I WAS BORED!". Not only is it hilarious, but it's just plain not true. Any deaths to teenagers caused by boredom result from "Accidental" not "suicidal" deaths such as car crashes, skateboard injuries, auto-asphyxiation or the like. The impulse of suicide tends to come from ANYTHING but boredom, and instead, derives from feeling horrible and emotionally destroyed for whatever causal reasons. True, the character can say anything, and it doesn't matter if it's true or not, but by now, he's been reduced to a talking point with a face, not a character. I watched this horrible film because I was bored, luckily, it did not make me want to kill myself.
The Writing Style/Plot Development
One important thing to note is that this film is very dialogue driven, mainly with the monologues by the characters to the camera. I know well about the writing process, and as in plays, when your story is so heavily dialogue based, you're at a great risk of making your characters seem schizophrenic, because that dialogue is ultimately based on the episodic mood swings of the writer over a long period of time, crunched down into the short period of time within the material. The foremost problem with the material delivered by these young actors is that really, it sounds like dialogue written by a balding middle aged man who THINKS he knows how teenagers talk, feel, and rationalize, which is packed with tonnes of whiny pseudo intellectual nonsense, which because they're TEENAGERS, never goes full circle and often ends in vanity, triteness, or ambiguity, so in most cases a REAL concise reason for committing suicide is never established, and how each character's "inner thoughts" contradict from scene to scene shows that the writer himself did not BELIEVE the dialogue, and thus was unable to make it coherent and credible.
Actors/Characters
My first impression was that the directing was bad, but the story and idea were good. I began to think twice about this in how the instigator of the whole premise "Scott", tells his very eclectic group of friends about his idea one by one, who ALL think it's so cool and amazing, and that they too MUST commit suicide along with him. The young actors were fairly mediocre, aside from Kris Lemche as "Patrick" who was the only one really able to create a compelling character with some sort of screen presence. I personally did not like any of the characters, especially the main protagonist "Scott" who speaks like a programmed robot, so filled with technical analytical phrases, that he only comes across as a caricature, and his friends have a bit of this too. Even though they're supposed to be non mainstream, in this film, a hodgepodge of sub cultures and social backgrounds so that ALL BASES of teen anxiety are covered, it's hard to imagine anyone being that out of touch with the world they live in, and moreover, "Scott" is able to rationally convince the school bully to return their camera, that he stole, with this very irritating way of speaking.
The Directing/Scene Layout
The directing, combined with a very stagey unravelling of events is what I found amazing that so many other reviewers were able to overlook. The classroom scenes, with the protagonist goofing off with his camera were very badly handled. That just won't happen without the smart ass students as well as the teacher getting in your face about it, and most teachers would confiscate the camera, but no one says a word. Picture having a conversation on your telephone in a classroom. How ridiculous would that be? Also, Patrick's character, spying on everyone with his camera, looking up girl's dresses, masturbating in the girl's washroom, without being seen, heard, or getting in trouble, not to mention abducting a screaming 10 year old in a crowded supermarket, hauling her into the washroom where he rapes and kills her without being seen, heard or caught, is simply just not realistic.
Suicidal Motives
The real crux of the issue however is the suicidal motives of the characters and how they were handled. of the 4 characters who state their cases for WHY they plan to kill themselves: Scott: inner freedom. Sandy: testament to true love. Trudi: domestic discord. Patrick: homicidal urges? None of these are given much background or ANY aside from Trudi's case, though still not convincingly, who ridiculously enough, in all 6 of them is the only one who is shown to have typical problems of depression, the kind you see in most real life suicide cases. The characters, Rick and Cody, who we are given no inner insight into, are wasted, and seem very full of life rather than depression, Particularly Rick, who in this film represents typical quasi hip-hop culture, who doesn't seem to fit in with this group of people at all.
Closing Notes/Film Message
I will close by touching on one of the very last phrases spoken into a camera by the character "Scott" and showing truly how badly the people involved in the making of this film do NOT understand their subject. "Do you want to know the real truth? I did it because I was bored. The number one killer of teenagers today isn't drugs or alcohol... It's just plain boredom.... AND I WAS BORED!". Not only is it hilarious, but it's just plain not true. Any deaths to teenagers caused by boredom result from "Accidental" not "suicidal" deaths such as car crashes, skateboard injuries, auto-asphyxiation or the like. The impulse of suicide tends to come from ANYTHING but boredom, and instead, derives from feeling horrible and emotionally destroyed for whatever causal reasons. True, the character can say anything, and it doesn't matter if it's true or not, but by now, he's been reduced to a talking point with a face, not a character. I watched this horrible film because I was bored, luckily, it did not make me want to kill myself.
I work at Blockbuster, so naturally we get to see the movies before their official street date. I picked up "State's Evidence" because I saw that Alexa Vega was in it and the story just sort of grabbed me.
It was bold, but moving; the cast did a great job (Kris Lemche, in particular). The idea of a bunch of teenagers setting out to all commit suicide on camera is somewhat silly, but hearing their observations of the world today and seeing how everything spins out of control was just indescribable. This film was disturbing and surreal, but it was great. It literally made my heart ache.
If you're looking for some romantic comedy or cliché drama, then this is not the movie for you. However, if you're looking for a honest eye-opener, then I would definitely recommend this.
It was bold, but moving; the cast did a great job (Kris Lemche, in particular). The idea of a bunch of teenagers setting out to all commit suicide on camera is somewhat silly, but hearing their observations of the world today and seeing how everything spins out of control was just indescribable. This film was disturbing and surreal, but it was great. It literally made my heart ache.
If you're looking for some romantic comedy or cliché drama, then this is not the movie for you. However, if you're looking for a honest eye-opener, then I would definitely recommend this.
- PuddleDuck624
- Nov 1, 2006
- Permalink
This is the most irritating movie that I have seen in some time. The thing that makes it such an unremitting piece of crap is its infuriating pseudo-intellectualism. The characters are unbearably pretentious, and the writing is absolutely terrible. The so called intellectuals in this movie apparently know something of philosophy but don't know that they sound like complete dicks, a few Kant references do not make you an intellectual. I have never written a review before but after seeing this movie I had to write something to register my disgust. This is terrible and pretentious with nothing to be pretentious about. It sucks.
- bucklerich1
- Aug 22, 2011
- Permalink
I love the internet as I come on here and cost film makers money if I don't like their films, not in a vindictive way (well maybe) but generally if I feel ripped off or taken for a fool as with States Evidence.
It is the worst sort of film, it's exploitation attempting and failing badly to be a meaningful examination of shootings in American schools. This is distasteful enough, but to do it in such a crass, arrogant, smug, naive way is unforgivable.
Four out of the five of the main actors are in their twenties and look it (Kris Lemche was 28 when this was made) which along with the badly realised device of actors filming themselves totally destroys any sense of believability.
Acting is self conscious and over the top and not helped by childish and pretentious dialogue. The deathless prose never ceases with a endless monologues of verbal diarrhea instead of structure and story.
This all makes up for a truly annoying and boring film with a mawkish, insincere climax so amateurish that it made me laugh instead of cry.
It is the worst sort of film, it's exploitation attempting and failing badly to be a meaningful examination of shootings in American schools. This is distasteful enough, but to do it in such a crass, arrogant, smug, naive way is unforgivable.
Four out of the five of the main actors are in their twenties and look it (Kris Lemche was 28 when this was made) which along with the badly realised device of actors filming themselves totally destroys any sense of believability.
Acting is self conscious and over the top and not helped by childish and pretentious dialogue. The deathless prose never ceases with a endless monologues of verbal diarrhea instead of structure and story.
This all makes up for a truly annoying and boring film with a mawkish, insincere climax so amateurish that it made me laugh instead of cry.
wow i just watched this movie last night and was blown away. the premise was intriguing and when i popped the DVD into DVD player i was blown away by the story and the character. it was dark gritty and brilliant. it opened my eyes to the things around me. it tapped into the mind set of many teenagers. on some level i think all teens can relate if not with the suicide but with elements that create the characters. if its the hurt of a broken home. the enduring love for that one. this movie should be watched by all teens and parents. not only can teens relate but parents can get an insight on how hard it is to go to high school now. times have changed from when the y were in highschool. i recommend this to everyone. you are in for a real treat.
- mattyvintage
- Jan 6, 2007
- Permalink
Reading some of these comments actually makes me wonder whether I watched the same film. Truly, mind numbingly dreadful to the point of being unwatchable. There were no characters, just the same dull, pretentious monologue spouted by different actors. I actually found my self wondering if the writer had just used cut and past with each of his 'characters'. The film gets off to a bad start with the smug, self serving, badly actored lead wandering round his own house with a camera that immediately makes you wish he would just die in some horrible gruesome fashion, without being forced to endure 2 hours of screen time. The most unbelievable part of this film was the point when the main character talks the school jock/bully round (the school jock's dialoge consisting of what looks like lyrics from a 50 cent people and made me wonder if the author had ever actually met any black people).
I'm not prone to violence and that sanctimonious, self indulging scene made me want to beat the crap out of the little twerp but the aggressive, crotch grabbing, stereotypical jock is talked round? I don't think so.
Basically when the most likable character in your film is the child murdering rapist you have problems. If I ever meet mark brown I will slap him round the head, I won't get the wasted two hours of my life back, but it will make me feel better
I'm not prone to violence and that sanctimonious, self indulging scene made me want to beat the crap out of the little twerp but the aggressive, crotch grabbing, stereotypical jock is talked round? I don't think so.
Basically when the most likable character in your film is the child murdering rapist you have problems. If I ever meet mark brown I will slap him round the head, I won't get the wasted two hours of my life back, but it will make me feel better
- nickybreen
- Dec 9, 2007
- Permalink
This film kicks ass. I just bought it and glad i did.. This film is Ground Breaking, it's a mix of Gus Van Sant's Elephant but way way more interesting to watch and has the boldness of KIDS. This film is truly a film for all to watch, a very strong message in this film. The Director put it all out in this film and should be proud. Very PROUD! He matched continuity like ELEPHANT which is just amazing directing, He got into the teenage mind from many different views and showed us what makes people say and do and act the way they do. makes you think and question yourself? This Director is going very far, as far as he wants. I look forward to his next projects!
- eagle--eyes
- Nov 15, 2006
- Permalink
I use to be big into the independent scene, but recently it's been failing me. So, because I work at a major movie rental company, I've been forced to watch more mainstream movies or be bored out of my wits. However, State's Evidence kept me glued to my set, waiting for what was going to happen next. I think the casting was great, and not being to far gone from my teen years, I can look back and associate with most of the characters, but mainly Scott. So, I am going to be forcing my regulars to watch this movie...
BAD STUFF -Audio is a bit out of sync. -Not family friendly
GOOD STUFF -Made me think -Suspenseful
BAD STUFF -Audio is a bit out of sync. -Not family friendly
GOOD STUFF -Made me think -Suspenseful
- millerbilly1-1
- Nov 24, 2006
- Permalink
- thatwasntfood
- May 25, 2010
- Permalink
Suicide is not often a subject Hollywood would take on, unless it is part of a action flick or if its done by some sort of hero to save the world.
I have often found this subject to be taboo, where Hollywood makers take foreign movies, re-make them and if there is suicide in the movie, they change the story to... suit a wider audience.
Growing up in todays society is not easy. Older generations might say it was not easy for them either but lets face it, todays youth are having a bit more obstacles to face. Obstacles our parents never had to worry about. How many school shootings did we have in the 60s and 70s and how much better is todays education system from back then? This movie draws us these factors and issues besides the everyday-Hollywood-teen-movie drug and alcohol issues. I think we have had plenty of that.
As you may already read, this is a movie about a group of teenagers who decide to commit suicide. We are taken on a journey, where we get to know each character and the issues facing them.
I really recommend this movie for everyone. This movie is very open and blunt and all though I have seen more gore in action movies this felt more real where you sometimes forget that its only a movie and not something you just downloaded form YouTube.
Not for the faint hearted and deferentially for parent and educators.
I have often found this subject to be taboo, where Hollywood makers take foreign movies, re-make them and if there is suicide in the movie, they change the story to... suit a wider audience.
Growing up in todays society is not easy. Older generations might say it was not easy for them either but lets face it, todays youth are having a bit more obstacles to face. Obstacles our parents never had to worry about. How many school shootings did we have in the 60s and 70s and how much better is todays education system from back then? This movie draws us these factors and issues besides the everyday-Hollywood-teen-movie drug and alcohol issues. I think we have had plenty of that.
As you may already read, this is a movie about a group of teenagers who decide to commit suicide. We are taken on a journey, where we get to know each character and the issues facing them.
I really recommend this movie for everyone. This movie is very open and blunt and all though I have seen more gore in action movies this felt more real where you sometimes forget that its only a movie and not something you just downloaded form YouTube.
Not for the faint hearted and deferentially for parent and educators.
- gabriel-kehl-1
- Dec 20, 2007
- Permalink
- pushfrog_2000
- Aug 28, 2009
- Permalink
This film was brilliant, as dark and brutal as they get. The plot on the surface may be fantastical at parts but regardless of its extremities i found realistic depth in the characters very individual stories, showing the harsh truth behind every day lives.
I think the films current rating is an absolute insult. If you like dark, interesting films you will love this. The people rating this thought they were watching a teen flick obviously. But if your the kind of person who would like this film, you don't pay attention to critic ratings anyway. Im glad i watched this film alone as i wouldn't feel comfortable watching it with someone else. I suggest others do the same.
I think the films current rating is an absolute insult. If you like dark, interesting films you will love this. The people rating this thought they were watching a teen flick obviously. But if your the kind of person who would like this film, you don't pay attention to critic ratings anyway. Im glad i watched this film alone as i wouldn't feel comfortable watching it with someone else. I suggest others do the same.
- mencius_89
- May 9, 2009
- Permalink