My rating 5/10 is for some minor scenes throughout and mainly a technical rating.
This was not a good movie. I felt like I was watching a Hallmark film with Step Up thrown in. Okay, this teenage boy who is a DJ 99% of the time and a 17 year old 1% of the time. He comes from a dysfunctional family. A mother who never wanted him (apparently) but quit drugs to take care of him but apparently she couldn't do that right because the guy takes care of himself yet he's a drug addict (since 12) and gets into a lot of trouble. So, he has a drug overdose and is sent to live with his father who actually comes off as this good guy but who left him and his mom after he was born, and you never really learn why.
So the kid has to go to a counselor per court orders who is more screwed up than he is, and he meets a girl from a screwed up family because her older brother died in Iraq (we never learn anything about her own father, and where he is) but that's the norm in this highly diverse small town in North Dakota that everyone has lost everyone but they don't deal with the loss they just bury it.
I'm sorry but I live in a small town of almost 7,000 people. So small that the nearest movie theater is in the next state up. We honor our dead. Whether they fought in a war, or not. I'm not saying that it's not possible for an entire town to all hold in their baggage collectively...well, maybe I am. It just seems so fictionalized for this film because of all the happy dancing going on! There was more dancing in this film than I thought there would be. It was more of a character in of itself than all the other things combined.
Okay, the kid has parental issues which never seem to be resolved. He's the main character, and it felt like he was a third character in this film. His girlfriend, her family, her dead brother and his best friend (the counselor) actually seem to be the main focus of the film. Well, that and all the "dancing".
There was just so many arcs in this film that only one of them gets resolved: the girlfriend's baggage (and by-way the counselor's), and cheesily I might add. What about the main character?!?!
The kid gets beat up a couple of times by this jock and his friends but it's okay because the kid lost his own parents when he was little. That story: not resolved.
Other cheesy things like: you can't watch a war film because people from this tiny town have lost people in a war and it's just too emotional. Well, if that's the message then don't watch this movie, that's all they talk about.
This movie went nowhere.
So bad.
-Nam
This was not a good movie. I felt like I was watching a Hallmark film with Step Up thrown in. Okay, this teenage boy who is a DJ 99% of the time and a 17 year old 1% of the time. He comes from a dysfunctional family. A mother who never wanted him (apparently) but quit drugs to take care of him but apparently she couldn't do that right because the guy takes care of himself yet he's a drug addict (since 12) and gets into a lot of trouble. So, he has a drug overdose and is sent to live with his father who actually comes off as this good guy but who left him and his mom after he was born, and you never really learn why.
So the kid has to go to a counselor per court orders who is more screwed up than he is, and he meets a girl from a screwed up family because her older brother died in Iraq (we never learn anything about her own father, and where he is) but that's the norm in this highly diverse small town in North Dakota that everyone has lost everyone but they don't deal with the loss they just bury it.
I'm sorry but I live in a small town of almost 7,000 people. So small that the nearest movie theater is in the next state up. We honor our dead. Whether they fought in a war, or not. I'm not saying that it's not possible for an entire town to all hold in their baggage collectively...well, maybe I am. It just seems so fictionalized for this film because of all the happy dancing going on! There was more dancing in this film than I thought there would be. It was more of a character in of itself than all the other things combined.
Okay, the kid has parental issues which never seem to be resolved. He's the main character, and it felt like he was a third character in this film. His girlfriend, her family, her dead brother and his best friend (the counselor) actually seem to be the main focus of the film. Well, that and all the "dancing".
There was just so many arcs in this film that only one of them gets resolved: the girlfriend's baggage (and by-way the counselor's), and cheesily I might add. What about the main character?!?!
The kid gets beat up a couple of times by this jock and his friends but it's okay because the kid lost his own parents when he was little. That story: not resolved.
Other cheesy things like: you can't watch a war film because people from this tiny town have lost people in a war and it's just too emotional. Well, if that's the message then don't watch this movie, that's all they talk about.
This movie went nowhere.
So bad.
-Nam