Sins of Our Youth

I just had the opportunity of seeing this film at the Hollywood Film Festival, and first, good job for tackling a very tough subject. As someone who has a personal friend whose sibling committed suicide on a shooting range, and another friend who accidentally shot and killed his young brother, this resonates with me.

As much as I liked the film, I couldn't help but feel like it needed some tightening in terms of the pacing and execution of the dialog. I felt some of the dialog was little forced. A little after school special. I found myself saying "would someone really say something like that?"

Lucas Till is certainly growing as an actor. It's always great to see someone mature in their craft. This young man's star has just begun to shine, and I hope that he makes career choices that don't always stereotype him as the blond hunk du jour.. The rest of the cast was great as well, and I hope that we see these actors work together again sometime.

All politics aside, I liked the movie a lot. It was very tense, and all four of the lead actors did a great job. They made the movie feel real, scary, and tragic. I had no clue how the story was going to end, which kept the tension level high. I was feeling the same panic that the characters were feeling. The soundtrack really stood out as well, and fit the movie perfectly. Everything felt very 'real life.'

There was only one thing that really brought down the movie for me, and that was the whole subplot involving Tyler's girlfriend. Ultimately, it did set up the climax, but most of it felt unnecessary. Some of the most intense scenes were directly followed by a scene with her planning a party with her friends. It's like the movie suddenly changed genres. That's not to say anything against the actress, since she did a good job. It just felt like they tried to force in another story where it wasn't needed.

I'd talk about the politics of the movie, but I don't feel that's needed. The movie itself didn't feel very political, there were only a couple scenes that had obvious political statements.

The interesting thing about Sins Of Our Youth is that while it's about the need for gun control it does not preach one single word. It let's you see and judge for yourself.

Two expatriates from the Disney studios, Lucas Till and Mitchel Musso plus Joel Courtney and Bridger Zadina play four well fixed and rather bored youths. Till and Courtney are brothers and they take out some of the weapons that dear old dad had accumulated over decades exercising his 2nd Amendment rights. Everybody uses Uzis and 15 clip automatic pistols and rifles that could stun a blue whale for their hunting.

The four of them all drunk out of their minds start shooting at Christmas decorations and some poor little kid gets killed. The four know this is it for their young lives. The rest of the film is how they clumsily attempt to deal with the tragedy before and after it's discovered.

My favorite scene is when Till opens the locked closet easily enough and you see the arsenal dear old dad accumulated. In the name of God for what?

This is a no frills production and it could have used improvements all around. But it has a sincere message to tell and tell it it does.

I think this whole movie was just so bizarre and badly written

I do not get people thinking this is a good movie on gun control. The guns these idiots broke in and *stole* (they stole them, that is what it is called when you cut a lock and take things that aren't yours) were legally owned and purchased by an adult. These kids couldn't buy a gun legally. The big issue is where the hell are their parents? And if you aren't going to be a present parent instilling a morale compass in your kids this is what could happen. Mother drinking with kids, parents away leaving teenagers alone apparently for weeks on end - duh they get in trouble. No one cares these kids ditch school including police officers in a diner during a school day. ' This is one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen. And for the record I grew up with guns everywhere and kids that were raised with guns would never be so stupid as to use them to shoot up decorations at their own damn house in a neighborhood. This is just a really ridiculous story written by a person that knows nothing about the respect gun owners have and instill in anyone they train to use firearms and hunt.

And these kids never cared they murdered a 12 year old boy and left his parents to wonder what happened. Instead they plan to take each other out?! Seriously stupid.

You can enact any law you want when people steal weapons no law is going to work. Being able to buy and won guns legally has nothing to do with this load of trash.