Trainwreck: The Real Project X

I cannot stress enough how much nothing happens in this documentary. Would you like a total recap? Once upon a time a bunch of party kids crowded a single street because they heard about a birthday party on Facebook. That's it. That's the story.

This nothing event (where, at worst, some police showed up and made noise to break-up the crowd) was practically as long as this doc itself. Barely an hour and you learn nothing except: some girl's birthday party went a little viral and then kids showed up making noise.

This is the bottom of the barrel for documentary topics. I mean, truly nothing to glean from any of this. Nothing happened worth remembering. Nothing happened to change anyone's lives. Nothing happened besides the above.

"Trainwreck" is almost becoming an ironic and appropriate title for this very series. They've covered a few interesting topics in their time. This one the most useless.

I don't understand why society is so soft on anarchy. If we set a standard that says we won't tolerate anarchy, society will be a better place. The way to indicate that standard is serious is to debilitate offenders.

That is what should have been done in this case. Why was there no tear gas or rubber bullets? Or real bullets?

Anarchy should not be tolerated, and in this case it was well known to be a potentiality many many days in advance. Let's do better as a society.

ABOUT MY REVIEWS:

I do not include a synopsis of the film/show -- you can get that anywhere and that does not constitute a meaningful review -- but rather my thoughts and feelings on the film that hopefully will be informative to you in deciding whether to invest 90-180 minutes of your life on it.

My scale: 1-5 decreasing degrees of "terrible", with 5 being "mediocre" 6- OK. Generally held my interest OR had reasonable cast and/or cinematography, might watch it again 7 - Good. My default rating for a movie I liked enough to watch again, but didn't rise to the upper echelons 8- Very good. Would watch again and recommend to others 9- Outstanding. Would watch over and over; top 10% of my ratings 10 - A classic. (Less than 2% receive this rating). For Lifetime Movies for Chicks (LMFC), drop the above scale by 3 notches. A 6 is excellent and 7 almost unattainable.

The documentary was a real disappointment. First of all, I found it completely unnecessary that the people involved didn't speak Dutch. That made it feel unbelievable. I still remember the day very well, and the media played a major role in escalating the situation. All the media were just waiting for riots to break out. That aspect was underrepresented in the documentary.

Merthe's story mostly just caused irritation. She was laughing more than showing any remorse. The same goes for the other people interviewed. All in all, it was not a pleasant documentary to watch. No police officers were interviewed. The residents of Haren were victims, but it was all treated like some kind of joke.

Merthe planned a 16th birthday party for about seventy people at her home in the small town of Haren. Unfortunately, the Facebook invite status was set to public, not private. Project X came to Haren.

Project X, that's a film I had all but forgotten about, not really my kind of thing as I'm getting older, but I understood the urge to party; however, I did not understand the urge to cause carnage and destruction.

There was lots of interesting and shocking footage, and some of the scenes were unbelievable. One thing, though, it mentioned two deaths yet told us absolutely nothing about the two young women; that was a bit off.

Merthe came across incredibly well; what an intelligent and hugely likeable person-respect. Some of the 'people' that took part, you can imagine the kind of personality traits they have; we all know the type. The tooth, of course there had to be the tooth.

I visited Holland several times in the early 2000s; I don't remember it being a shy and retiring place that some are making it out to be; the smaller towns and villages, of course, would have been. I'd question if the cities were so quiet as was suggested.

The authorities appeared to be less than useless and Facebook played a massive part, both were to blame.

7/10.

I think Merthe is a sweet girl. This was not her fault, perhaps a bit naive. How something like an innocent facebook invitation could get out of hand is truly unbelievable. Therefore, it is a bit of an ok documentary to watch, but otherwise not very interesting. The short-haired man from "Stuk TV" could use some work on his English. That was annoying.

The documentary doesn't add anything about how this could have happened, group behavior, police statements, etc. More time could have been spent on that to make it a bit more interesting. That's a missed opportunity.

PS: In a few reviews, it's said Merthe laughed when she was talking about the rumor she heard of two deaths. Her laughter is clearly one of uncertainty, and right after she falls silent and cries.