Truly Dreadful Film

Takes itself way too seriously

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Imagine if you will the cast of 90210 located in Manhattan all rich and preppy and all heavily into the drug scene. This is essentially Twelve and these kids even have their own dealer.Young Chace Crawford after the death of his mother and since he's estranged from his father anyway has quit school after his junior year and has gone into the drug dealing business. Since he's got an in with all the rich kids he's got a steady base of customers and entry into where he can get more.Crawford is the main character, but there are others in Twelve which structurally looks a lot like Boogie Nights and Magnolia. Some of the parts are better than the whole with Crawford, Rory Culkin as this shy kid who is desperate to lose his virginity, and Billy Magnussen as his older psychotic brother.They may be rich but this is one sad lot of kids. You wonder if they will ever straighten out, some never get the chance.Incidentally the title comes from a new kind of designer drug that some of the kids will pay any price for.Twelve is not a Twelve or even a 10. Some good individual performances make it worth a look though.

No matter what the bad reviews say about the story, acting, or premise, this movie is worth seeing simply as a work of art. This film should be included in every list of movies given to cinematographers to learn from. The camera work and visual style of this film is enough to earn it at least an 8/10 rating, and when you add in the characterization that's on par with most best-picture winners, you have a 9-10 rating. There are parts of this movie where you can't help but feel drawn into the story. The storytelling is incredible. If the characters on screen are feeling depressed or confused due to an intense drug trip, the audience feels the same way. This is done through masterful camera work, narration, dialogue, flashbacks, lighting, sound, and plot. This film should be viewed by all and revered as a work of art by all who have the authority. 15-25 year-olds will connect immediately with the story, and everyone else will be in awe soon after. A great film all around.

i somehow ended up watching it in the cinema cause there was nothing interesting being shown that night. we hoped that it would be some light entertainment, some stylish flick. but hell no! it proved downright stupid while pretending to have Some depths, being a teen drama and all, telling you about the harsh lessons you oughta learn growing up. i think that's why some of the reviews are so aggressive cause to me, being part of the audience, it also was aggravating. you can't help but feel insulted, e.g. intellectually. luckily i was in good company watching this and me and my friend kinda enjoyed it the way you enjoy trash movies, joking, commenting and laughing -mostly of despair. still the anger remains. (this review was obviously written out of that vengeful spirit.) it's something different to watch crap like that in cinema, paying for it and, given the pr, having had no clue that it's crap. more respectful pr would try to underline the positive instead of telling lies. in this case: it's trashy, which can be fun to watch, at least for some of us. and not to few: it was cool when at the intendedly dramatic moments in the end there was laughter from different parts of the theatre. but for trash gourmets and their DVD evening it should definitely be fun. the stupidity and grossness of it is artistically woven through the script (dialogues, narration, characters), the acting, and the visual extravaganza, which at times is almost unbearably pretentious. i think the term to sum up the movie would be "pathetic". please watch it, if you hate it!! you get to feel such a variety emotions watching trash deliberately. and also i want others to suffer that movie, too^^ -but don't contribute to this thingy financially.

I didn't go to film school. I don't know much about film-MAKING. But I'm pretty good at knowing what makes a flick "good", "bad", & downright awful.In my humble, amateur, film-reviewing opinion, this movie was a nightmare from beginning to...well...I couldn't even finish it. I stopped it 25 minutes before the end.For me, what makes a movie good/great is BELIEVING THAT THE CHARACTERS ARE REAL. When I watch the actor/actress, I don't see THEM. I see, hear, FEEL their character.And what makes a flick "bad" for me is, well, simply NOT BELIEVING THE CHARACTER. Yes. I'm very green at writing reviews! This film seemed like it was trying to be an updated version of Less Than Zero. ?? Don't know. But what I witnessed was a bunch of young actors WHO NEED TO RETURN TO ACTING CLASSES.From the actresses who SEEMED to be trying so hard to come across as "Mean Girls" (Lindsay Lohan & Rachel Mcadams were Believable 'Mean Girls' to me) to the actors who -- I HIGHLY DOUBT HAVE EVER EVEN SMOKED JOINTS -- much less SOLD ANY (ANY illicit drugs), KIEFER SUTHERLAND'S VOICE was the only aspect of this nightmare that I sort of liked! SAVE YOUR MOOLA!