96 Minutes

source: 96 Minutes

This movie follows four young people struggling in their own way with their education. The main male lead is a senior high school student (Evan Ross) who grew up in a terrible environment, and tries to escape his "fate" (or what people expect him to become) by studying hard and trying to get a good education. An excellent, excellent movie! The two leading actors (and most others) just did a great job! We saw the part of the movie crew at a premiere; they explained that beyond the heavy tension of the movie, they actually had a hard time not spending their time laughing with each other... This totally did not show up on the screen, the movie is tensed throughout and the acting (again) just excellent. The directing is just sublime as well, excellent shot decisions that gives the proper atmosphere to the movie with a lot of close up shots to focus on the characters.

Just because a movie is based on a true story doesn't mean that it's true. I could base a horror movie about the moon blowing up on the true story of the Apollo astronauts. Overall, the movie really isn't too bad. However, I'm just tired of the stereotypes. White male = arrogant, rich, privileged jerks. White and black women - either perfect or victims. Black male that commits a crime = misunderstood. My first clue is when the leading lady has a phone call with her father, whereby he informs her that he's too busy to go to her college graduation. At this juncture, the conversation lets us know that the father has never visited her at college for the entire four years. This struck a cord with me, because like the father I work hard and travel all over the world. However, it is my ex- wife (yes a mother, can you believe it) who has never bothered to visit our son even once while he was at college. Furthermore, on the day of his graduation, she flew in for brunch and then left before the graduation ceremony was over. Meanwhile, I would visit every couple of months and deal with each year's move-in and move-out days. I'm tired of the white males being the bad guys - especially in Hollywood. This movie is no different, it just keeps pushing the same Hollywood stereotype. We move on to the leading man. A black youth who is intelligent, about to graduate high school, and has a bright future. Of course, he later lines up the two women that he hijacks and threatens to shoot them in the backs of their heads - but hey, he's just in a bad situation and is also a victim. On top of everything else, we have policemen (white and black) shaking down black youths just because of the color of their skin. We also have policemen questioning the black male (who rescues the women at the end) as if he was the criminal. As far as the first incident, it just don't happen anymore. In fact, it stopped happening an long time ago - so Hollywood "just get over it." The second incident shows the cops being A-holes to the black hero, which they pretty much would be anyway regardless if the guy was black or white. When it comes to being an a- hole, it's just what policemen are (see I have a few stereotypes of my own). The bottom line is that there is good and bad and everyone knows the difference. I'm tired of hearing about circumstance and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If you're bad and you're punished for it, then you're a criminal getting what you deserve. If you're good and punished for it, then you're a victim. Yes folks, it is just that black and white. When it comes to thugs there are no shades of grey.

I thought this movie was going to be a thriller, but I couldn't believe what a great drama it was! The story is really compelling and really draws you in. You think you know where the story is going because of all the flashbacks, but there were several twists and turns that I did not see coming, and by the end I was biting my nails trying to figure out how it would all play out. The acting in this movie was simply superb, really heart wrenching. I haven't seen a lot of Brittany Snow's other work (I saw Hairspray, and obviously this character was way different than her character in Hairspray) but I was really impressed by what a great job she did in this movie, she seemed very comfortable with her character and wasn't really "acting" at all. Of course the other actors were great as well, I was just especially impressed with Brittany. The other thing that really stuck out for me (in a good way) was the music in this movie. The score was beautiful and really helped underscore the drama that was happening on screen. And did you notice the way that songs subtly tie together two scenes (and two story lines)? Overall it's a great movie with a lot of heart, and I can't wait to see it again!