You're Killing Me

This film does little to develop any of the characters, and the plot is basic rich/poor at a fancy school. Except the target is entry to an Ivy league school rather than to stop bullying.

So stock rich kids & poor kids engage so the poor one can finagle into a school that her poor friend has a full ride. Rich kids are standard rich kids with all the excess that comes with it.

Oh wait, the film starts wurh a missing girl!

What starts as a standard party to get ahead turns into a heist and hostage situation. All the wrong choices are made, all the obvious signs are ignored, and the revenge is served stupidly.

Oh well. Anne Heche filmed her part soon before she died. She looked as if she was ready to fall over intoxicated. Or she was reeling from chemo.

Tense only due to the stupidity if the characters.

Have you ever watched a movie that was so bad that it made you physically angry? This is that movie. For some reason it was certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. The numbers had to be manipulated. There is nothing good about this movie. I don't know how anyone involved with this travesty watched the finished product and declared "yep, it's ready". The plot is a re-tread of much better movies (young woman gets hunted by a group of killers) but with terrible dialogue and even worse acting. It's sad to see Anne Heche (R. I. P.) who is clearly not all there and the usually solid Dermot Mulrony ham it up, and at the same time, phone it in. This movie could have been wrapped up in about 45 minutes and it would have been better. Most of the scenes seem to be dragged out to fill time. Do yourself a favor and skip this one.

This movie is so DUMB! The writing is so STUPID. Every plot point is CRAZY. Every character choice is so ridiculous and makes no sense.

Just when you think the acting could not be more over the top, or the writing could not get more idiotic...it does.

It is supposed to be about the power dynamics between the rich and the poor, but it is a joke. Everyone but the lead are horrible people.

I did not find the plot twists were not shocking, suspenseful ,or entertaining...it just annoyed me that people were so dumb, and made me mad the movie was still going.

Sitting through this movie was KILLING ME!

Overall quite great for a rather low budget film, and a decent thriller that shouldn't have a problem keeping viewers on the edge of their seat. The plot was far from perfect however, with a lot of moments I personally found hard to interpret, and a lot of filler as well. Color grading was also little poor, with the entire film being quite dark. Characters and acting were overall decent, though it would've been better if each character had more time at the beginning to establish themself. Casting seemed to be decent, though it would've been interesting to see what else could've been accomplished if this wasn't where the majority of the budget went.

Just some observations mixed with questions to follow. I don't recognize most of these characters. The lead and her bestie's relationship seem plausible enough. Others however, don't feel like people that exist any place but in a movie. How and why are the antagonists here friends? The sniveling Gooch is completely and stupefyingly inept, getting owned every time by female characters, both enemies and allies, and he loves slapping his head... a lot. He's also easily the most helpless, hopeless character and the movie's (scape)GOAT! I won't bother much with the vaguely lesbian Kendra, and her butterfly knife(?) or the leader of the strangely insular trio Barrett, making(and looking)like an ersatz, young Kevin Bacon. Of greater concern is the linchpin event, at the heart of this story. Barrett is the highly privileged son of a congressman who trolls the streets in broad daylight picking up a familiar, but hesitant young girl, with his number one and two in tow? Really? Who thought this was a winning idea? You'll notice phones are like another character here. Things happen with them that are highly questionable, but convenient to the plot. Dermot Mulroney is on board, in a turn similar to the one he played in this year's Scream sequel, and the late Anne Heche plays his wife and she, well... see for yourself. The lesser known players are solid enough, but some say and do "iffy" things that detract from their performances. One scene has the lead girl, Eden intending to schmooze up to (Barrett) Schroder for reasons known to both, but when it's just the two of them alone, he's doing all the talking while she can barely wait to dispense with the small talk, cutting straight to the chase with all the finesse of Godzilla stomping through Tokyo! While this movie's third act is more interesting than what came before it, it's the clunky stuff that came before that holds it back, as a whole. I actually started this review while still watching the film. I was ready to give it 2 stars 30-40 mins in, before it continued to it's conclusion and I realized that it would be too harsh a judgment. It's simply not that bad, but it also, while competently assembled with a certain amount of flair, has character, dialogue and script/plot issues that keep it firmly in, "It's ok" territory.