Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Okay - let's dispel some misconceptions first. I have two teenagers, and work part-time at a high school, and the language/characterizations of the two leads (Barton and Van Hoy) were among the best parts of this. Yes, Virginia, young teens and tweens do overdramatize that much and use such language.The acting itself wasn't bad - I've seen Barton and Reynolds in better form, but let's face it - Sir Lawrence Olivier couldn't have done much better with this script.The idea was intriguing, and remotely plausible - for all I know, kids that young have tried bank (or at least armed) robberies - they do other violent crimes, too.So far, so good - fair cast, fairly well-cast, and while they often act irritating, it irritates, it does not cause disbelief.Unfortunately, that's as far as it went. "Daring", art-school camera angles, nihilistic vision, and remarkably absurd characterizations pretty much destroy this film. I mean, really - the frightened teller who is transformed into a happy-go-lucky jokester because someone blows soap bubbles, the FBI hostage negotiator who totally loses his cool repeatedly, the dozens of police who let a barely-pubescent girl walk out almost to the police barricades - and then back into the bank - if it was any worse, I'd believe that the writer/director uses a single noun as a name. Oh, wait - they do. Never mind.The audio is awful - much of the dialog is lost (and there are no English subtitles on the DVD). This would make a good study for a film-making class - finding the filmmaker's mistakes would be an easy yet worthwhile class project.Worthwhile for fans of Burt Reynolds or Mischa Barton, who trot out workmanlike performances, or those interested in Cameron Van Hoy - his character has a one-octave range, but he plays that range pretty well, and may do well with more multi-dimensional characters. Otherwise, this is best left to the terribly alienated artistic types who view the world in the same way as the writer/director, Ash.

Well I'm giving this a 7 because of the movie it could have been. Generally, most of these comments are pretty accurate, but it really was a very good idea - the movie shows the media obsession with violence, similarly to natural born killers, but with the added spin of the effect this has on children. This was not meant to be a serious movie and while people have been criticizing it as more of a child's fantasy than a real drama, I think that this was the point and I rather criticize the movie for not making it as obvious. The acting leaves a lot to be desired and the script could have used some editing but this could have been a very good movie. Shame really.

Okay, okay, so it wasn't Mischa's best work. Yes indeed, she was much better in Lawn Dogs, and even quite okay in 'Once and Again' but even here, at times, she didn't suck THAT much.And was it just my imagination, or did we see an-honest-God FLASH from Mischa? A Sharon 'Basic Instinct' Stone kind of flash? (albeit WITH responsible white panties) I mean, we saw Natalie Portman's ..., for a fleeting one-tenth of a second, when she planted Leon the plant, in 'Leon', which was remarkable, but this ... !?? What I wanna know, is how did this survive the cut? And Barton's parents scrutiny? It's all beyond me, folks.Anyway, I think Van Hoy did a good job, lets say 95 percent the convincing job that Osment did in the 'Sixth Sense' (in which film, btw, Barton did NOT suck) and that Barton did her job 3 quarters of the time, maybe two-thirds. Let's not forget that acting is hard, even for kids. The problem is that usually kids come off it so good, because they're acting to be kids (themselves), and at the same time, the expectation level is lower than for adults. But now Barton and Van Hoy had to act more or less adult parts, and even Jodie Foster in 'Bugsy' didn't have to do that. And, this must be the only feature film I have ever seen where the actors where the exact age of their characters. Aside from Franco Zeffirelli's 'Romeo and Julia', no other actress in a major drama approached her age as close as Barton.Take Buffy or Dawson's Creek for example. There the actors are four (Gellar is 20, when she plays a 16 yo) to seven years older (Hannigan is 23!!!, when she plays a 16 yo) than their characters, which is ridiculous. On Dawson's Creek, Michelle Williams is praised by her colleagues for acting so well at 18, while she's then a whopping 2 years older than her character! People, get real .... So don't be so harsh on Barton.Besides, I think she pulled off the guntoting scenes, and the interview scenes quite well. You can see what Ash wanted to do in the scenes between Barton and Van Hoy, a sort of reality show like atmosphere thingee. This didn't really work, i've seen better but still, the effort is commendable.PS. Now that I've seen some of the other comments, I would like to recommend that the Brady-Bunch minded 'folks' and Republicans refrain from further commenting on this film. Please spare me your bigoted, close minded comments. One of these hocks wrote that to see 13yo kids talking about sex is almost kiddie porn for him. Beside the fact that this is a slap in the face for all those kids that experience REAL abuse, this reader SOOO needs reality check!!! Kids that age do talk about this stuff in that crude way. They don't know any other way, with more sophistication. Please, Republicans and other hypocritical new-found-christians, don't comment this film, go watch some charlton-heston-with-jayne-seymour-KKK-flic.

First off, i bought this DVD purely for BURT REYNOLDS (he STILL outshines all of his material, in whatever movie) and even i know, that 'THE BANDIT' has picked some bad movies, since BOOGIE NIGHTS. PUPS is a step in the right direction. The two young actors pull off good performances (that if played wrong, could result in cringes all-round) and despite a FEW lapses into talking TOO grown up (for their years) the foul language worked (it shows how grown up, ADULTS sound, when THEY use such language)I'm sure it's a pretty low budget movie, but it just goes to show what you can do with a good tight script, and an unusual premise. Although, the black guy (from the bank) attitude changed, from hostile hostage to playful guest at the sudden sight of 'blowing bubbles', and the crippled guy was an annoyance (but i reckon it's better to give the guy hang-ups, at least they were justified?)BURT REYNOLDS gave a calm relaxed, yet focused performance (harking back to his legendary 'SHARKYS MACHINE' days, i think) For a lot of the negative reviews i've read for this movie, you can't say it drags on. But the (way too slick) MTV sequence, turns into double-sided sword, as it tries to have it's cake (throw it away)..and STILL eat it. I'm sure it seemed like good publicity for the music channel, but they also came across as self-centered, manipulative and completely un-bothered about it's source of income (i.e, the youth of today)Having said that, i have recomended this fine movie to all 9 out of 10