Sadly Over-hyped

Purely Joyful Movie!

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

It really is too bad there is nothing lower then one star. It doesn't even deserve that. Don't waste your time. They get away with it. There I saved you an hour a 21 mins. There is no psychological dept. It's simple. They ALL act within their set psychological patterns. Which mind you are stereotypes of the worst form. I can only imagine that the writer felt it unique in it's simplicity. Nope. Moves slow. dialog is trite, reactions were over the top and exaggerated and the ending was not worth the wasted time waiting for it. If you want to sit around for an hour and a half watching nasty whiny teens get away with murder then by all means this is the movie for you. I can't fault the actors they did their job. The story sucked.

I watched this because I didn't have anything to do, truth be told, but it was worth it.I guess this would go in the category of a teen thriller. Basically, there is a party; a girl accuses a guy of rape. It was "she said - he said". No witnesses. The ultra tough guy alpha male football player decides to beat up on the accused who denies it. The accused dies in the process. The kids spend the rest of the movie thinking of how they're going to cover it up.The movie has all your teen movie clichés: the tough guy football quarterback, the most popular girl in school, the young outcast girl who wants so bad to be in the in-crowd, the rebel misunderstood outcast guy from a broken home who doesn't want anything to do with anyone else but for some reason goes to the party anyway, the smart girl, and what would an American teen movie be without the one token black guy. Have I missed anything?So a movie like this is going to have to rely on the like-ability of the cast to make it worth watching. One of the actors is Jenna Boy who as a child appeared in "Dickie Roberts Former Child Star" and the first traveling pants movie. She's extremely likable, and I really hope she's in a lot more projects in the future. That girl is alright. The actor who plays the token black guy was pretty cool. And the other female actresses were likable too, but not as much as Jenna Boyd. The guy who plays the tough guy alpha male quarterback could use some more time in the gym to make the character more realistic.I wouldn't drive across town to see this movie. But it was okay.

"Complicity" impressed me as much as when during my military service some officer yelled to me that I would get weekend detention if I didn't clean a cobblestone road behind the barracks more thoroughly every morning.So,Very little.I was more impressed by an immense American "Drill Sergeant" who enlisted me to go on an nightly shooting practice (because I was part of the medical department and was responsible for handing out cotton wool to prevent hearing damage) with a few "marines "originally from Hawaii and now stationed in Germany, where the warheads were kept.I was particularly impressed that night when that huge sergeant started to yell at his men that they were a bunch of "losers" and that they were not as good as "The Medic" because I had a better hit ratio after shooting with an M-16 (I had already shot with just about any Belgian crap gun,so when he asked whether I wanted to try, I jumped at the chance).The word "lethal" was used several times and he asked if I would join The United States Army as a sniper. This has actually nothing to do with this movie,but it's fun to tell it once more.It starts as a typical high school story.Movies that take place in and around an American high school are always very interesting.Not because these are masterpieces (Besides "The Breakfast Club","Class of 1984" and "Pretty in Pink"),but because there's always a club of stereotypes in it. Similarly here.First you have the two class bimbos Shanon Erdman (Shoshana Bush) and Kim (Heather Hemmens) who are as fake as a rubber duck and have an IQ level of a typical kiwi.Usually those Beauty Queens are more concerned about themselves and aware of their irresistible beauty (the outside of course). And their skills are limited to the use of a smart-phone (only when they use a limited vocabulary like "OMG" and "No way") and the organization of meaningless parties. Obviously,one of the two has a boyfriend Kurt (Logan Huffman),the quarterback and local "jock" who excels in throwing an egg-shaped ball but whose brains largely descended into his biceps.And just like a remoras that accompanies a white shark,there's also a teammate (preferably a fat black dude) Dwayne (TJ Wilkins) who follows this dumb muscle everywhere. The only reason they are friends is the fact that they happen to play in the same team.This argument is even confirmed in this movie.Another one who can't be missed is the Goth chick. On reflection she's a not unattractive looking girl who's still looked at as a special case because of her alternative looks (a black swirling dress like Siouxsie, raven black hair and an overuse of mascara) and has a hate relationship with the Barbie's from school. In this movie there's a little deviation from this pattern because Lacy (Haley Ramm) apparently seems to be accepted. What else is she doing at Erdman's place ? And then you also need some weirdo. This part is for Mica (August Emerson).A kind of Brian Molko who occurs to be an androgynous person and he's accepted by the school bimbo's probably because he has some taste for fashion.And last but not least,we have the loner Dylan (Josh Janowicz) who's doing his utmost best to isolate himself and therefore gets even more in the spotlight. In most cases he's a person who scores reasonably good grades at school but because of certain circumstances his grades are going down. Usually this individual is screwed in the end. The only thing missing are a bunch of nerds and geeks. They were not explicitly portrayed here. But if you look at some visitors of the party, there are still some that I would categorize under this type. And then you have the "wannebes" like Rachel (Jenna Boyd) who would do anything (even driving around with a corpse) to be part of those who are popular.In most High School movies this range of characters comes along.The content of "Complicity" feels as if it's a thesis of a psychology student that deals with the interaction between individuals,who differ in personality and origin, during a stressful situation and how they seek for an acceptable solution.If this movie is the end result of this student's hard work,I would definitely flunk him because the end result is rather meager.No stress,no surprise,no unexpected twist, no startling end. Briefly: the bimbos are organizing a party because the parents arrive the next day,apparently everyone is invited (even the outsiders),some flirting goes out of control and there is even a so called sexual assault (although this isn't really proved),they end the party and things get out of hand, a fairly unpleasant problem arises and then the blaming and self protection starts. In the end the problem solves itself eventually.So don't expect in-depth psychological developments. It's just a childish yes-no game and everyone is trying to save his own ass. Then it becomes completely hilarious as the brainless beauty queens start to converse in a deep philosophical way like Shannon at a given time. Kim also made its contribution in the end by demonstrating that she understood the deeper meaning of para-taxis, as used by Allen Ginsberg, and she applied this technique on the recent experiences. And to think this wise words were pronounced by someone who took one stupid decision after another. Ridiculous.So if you have time to waste and you didn't receive your daily dose of nonsense yet, then you should definitely watch this movie. A film as empty as my bladder after a lengthy visit to the toilet.PS. And when on earth is someone going to use actors who do have a sense of rhythm and can dance a bit. Once again this was a bunch of people hopping around off beat as if they all were listening to their own personal mp3 player. And I'm still wondering who that old guy was the whole time ...More reviews at http://opinion-as-a-moviefreak.blogspot.be

It may not seem like it on the surface but "Complicity" is as much about the unbalanced personalities, thought-processes, and behaviors spawned within the classrooms of high schools today as it is about the co-dependent teenagers who will go to obsessive murderous lengths to covet and perpetuate the completely unrealistic social norms they feel pressured into upholding in order to feel worthy and valid enough to deserve the approval, love, and acceptance of each other and the adults who hold their fate in their hands.Perhaps this is nothing new but "Complicity" makes this much treaded theme even more urgently relevant. Because of the obvious and extensive examination of it in the past not leading to actions of any real social consequence it shows, more than ever, how the real victims of these horrible unchecked expectations are the teenagers and the terrible things they are capable of as a result of it. "Complicity" is an open-ended meditation on the subtext of what survival means to teenagers as individuals and as groups in a so- called peaceful enlightened society (North America) where good grades and making nice with the right people is as important as pretending everything is "okay" and just as it should be even when it isn't because the threat of failing to meet these grotesque standards looms over their heads in the form of rejection, poverty, despair, social ostracization and isolation, persecution, and the unspoken political agreement by a system of professional cowards that once a child reaches the legal age of adulthood their welfare is no longer the legal responsibility of any representative, organization or institution in this great and free country. This means no matter how screwed up they might have become from years of conditioning from the adult world during their childhood, everything that has happened to them out of their control during that time to make them who they are, is their own liability. And usually they don't realize they are their own liability until they are old enough to realize they have no f***ing clue what they are doing, suppose to be doing, or why they are doing it. The adult world, which up until then ran everything, takes no responsibility for what happens unless it can profit or benefit in some way either financially or socially. This type of hateful "ignorance" is what passes for "innocence" nowadays in North America. "Complicity" examines this heartless self-serving mentality in the blossoming personalities of its teenage characters as survival and innocence war for the dominion of their souls. They all know what they have been taught they are not supposed to understand because their suppressed instincts in this case are much sharper than the falsified experiences forced upon them by their "know-better" education. They all know that if they don't do the right thing they risk being relegated to that awful miserable fate that many succumb to, that dismissed never-mentioned minority of failures doomed to die a slow death from the deliberately flawed and calculated system bent on making survival as hard and as unbearable as it can for them. Murder has never been so objectified, insidious and untraceable as when it complies to an accepted social standard. This is the accepted norm nowadays. As okay as it was to segregate school by skin color fifty years ago nowadays it is okay to get away with murder as long as it uses certain means like psychological torture through cyber-bullying, shooting an innocent teenager because you are a member of a neighborhood watch committee, or decapitating and dismembering a person on a bus and then claiming that god made you do it. If there ever was a collective conscience it is definitely dormant, if not dead, and as this movie beautifully and clearly illustrates sociopathic behavior has become the norm in today's world and stresses more than ever: What makes somebody right or wrong is not how it affects somebody else either negatively or positively but whether or not they can get away with it.A high-school party at a suburban home spirals into tragedy forcing a group of teenage friends to examine the strength of their values and what choices they will make in order to make things "right".This sounds like typical fodder for a teenage horror movie but this is an extremely intelligent and realistic dissection of the idealistically merciless expectations put on teenagers by a callously unaware, disconnected and ignorant adult world and the effect it has on teenagers as a social group to handle real-life situations when they have to rely solely on their spoon-fed intellect because they have acquired no meaningful and worthwhile real-life experiences to draw from in order to support them in a time of crisis. This movie is definitely a horror movie in many respects but only because it presents its subject and characters with such a believable and unflinching eye. In that regard it is an incredibly detailed drama from which the horror is a side-effect of how believable it is. You've seen it before but never done this well. It is a triumph of both film making and acting that feels both successfully symbolic, insightful and realistic all at the same time. It is a film that shows the already overwhelming danger of a world that has stupidly come to value information and intellect over experience and sincerity and the devastating false edifices of integrity, character and knowledge that have resulted because of it.You know when Allen Ginsberg's epic poem "Howl" becomes as relevant as a murder ballad for the burden of a prematurely doomed soul as much as a justification for a horrendous crime that it's time people pricked up their ears and listened. Everyone should see this movie. How exceptionally well made it is is only surpassed by how relevant, realistic and truthful its subject matter is treated by cast and crew alike.