Pups

Pups is a movie with both good sides and bad sides. To start with the good news: Great acting by all three major roles. Burt Reynolds does his best. Cameron van Hoy is even better. But Mischa Barton is the best of all and shows that she is very talented. Also very good: The dramatic development during the hostage. Ash seems also a very talented director. But the film is also a failure. The Burt Reynolds part is very unrealistic and badly written. But the worst part of Pups is the extremely simple moral views. The writer/director is telling us "look what happens if parents are away all the time and the media is showing violent movies". This simplistic view is a missed chance. Pups could have been much better.

Why oh why did someone have to recommend American Beauty. That would be hinting that American Beauty and this movie had something in common. American Beauty was a beautiful piece of cinematic work. This movie was a piece of trash written by an angry 13 year old that never should have made it to film

The "movie," if that is what you call it mainly consists of 2 kids, waving guns around, and saying "f**k" repeatedly. I take it that we are in turn supposed to feel their pain because they come from broken homes. This movie gets no sympathy out of me. The only sympathy is have is for the people that watched this movie and will never get those precious hours of their lives back.

The notion that two kids could rob a bank is completely preposterous. The scenes were downright unbelievable. Especially the scene where Rocky goes outside and waves her gun around at the cops and media. In any real situation she would have been shot as soon as she took the gun out.

The movie plays out almost like a documentary. The sound quality is horrible, I don't remember hearing any music, and the scenes don't even fit together in any kind of order. One minute they are screaming at people outside. The MTV appearance was just plain wrong and didn't help the situation at all. And Rocky getting her period just added more confusion to an already too confused movie.

The acting was atrocious. I thought that Misha Barton was going places after seeing her in Lawn Dogs. But watching her in this movie washed all of those good feeling that I had about her. It was as if she had no acting experience at all. I swear if she moved her arms one more time I would have screamed. And when she is trying to be dramatic talking about her father molesting her, it pointed it out even more.

I should have turned the movie off as soon as the boy came on talking about "f**king the dog." So I guess it is my fault for putting myself in that sort of situation. Don't make the same mistake that I did.

I was about to turn the TV off and go to bed, then I saw some interesting movie on TV about two kids robbing a bank. First off, thank God someone finally casts actual 13 year olds to play 13 year olds (generally speaking, movies cast at least 3-4 years over what the actual age is, therefore high school seniors are 22 year old men and women which make it very hard to believe). The children were great actors for the most part. The message they were trying to say was a bit diluted, because it was obvious the child had a mental issue, and that clouded his own decision making abilities, yet the wheelchair man continually tried to make him out to be a product of the 1990's, and play it off as though he didn't have a choice. This is exactly what the media tries to do, is ignore the fact that the kid has a serious issue and blame it on the video games and the music he listens to. Amazingly, the Kurt Loder interview was intelligent and I don't think his "character" (if you can call it that) tried to reveal that image with the sequence. The very ending sequence was extremely powerful, and I think that should be the message and not who is to blame for the situation--the message should be what CAN happen if we don't change our ways. That's what happens if we don't start parenting responsibly and don't put any effort into raising a child the proper way, and indentifying mental issues before they go too far.

When I first began watching this movie, I didn't think it would be good. After spending 10 minutes of my time to see the first bits of the movie, I was glued to the T.v. This movie was excellent it all ways. The characters where interesting and believable, the plot had you on the edge of your seat, and the ending has you shocked in disbelief. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend that you see this movie, it is defanitly worth your time. With all the action, and serious parts in this movie, Ash, the writer, threw in some comidy to losen you up. Stevie (Cameron Van Hoy) shows an excellient proformace! ( "I'm Psycho" ) and Rocky plays what a real 13 year old girl might think. After watching this, the only thing i could say was "Wow!"

I respect what Ash was trying to do with this movie, and the guerilla film making style could have worked. To make a great movie, you don't need a huge budget, fancy distribution, or heavy promotions; but you do need a good script.

When you're trying to watch a film that realistically depicts the angst of today's youth, cliche lines like "what about when you touched me down there?" only detract. Trouble is, this film is filled with cliches that tend to take away from the message.

The film also would have done better to just be honest instead of trying to prove it's cool factor. I mean, Kurt Loder??? The idea of having Kurt freaking Loder in a movie sounds more like the idea of a bunch of 50 year old balding executives wearing suits in a boardroom trying to be "hip" and "cool" than that of a director who actually is hip and/or cool. In fact, that pretty much sums up a lot of this film: it tries to be cool instead of just being cool. It almost seems like a big budget film trying to pretend it was made by a young hipster director on a tight budget.

Then, why is the lack of professionalism sorely evident in the lackluster acting and weak script? The kids probably could have done a decent job with more time and coaching, but this seems like it was shot in a single day. The raw talent is there, it just isn't polished. The same can be said for the film making itself...I even saw the boom mic in one shot.

Pups is a decent movie that could have been great. There are seeds of truth in Pups and a fair amount of honesty. You just have to be willing to weed through the cliches, rammed down your throat morality, fake coolness, and Kurt Loder to see it.

Obviously, the studio didn't think much of this movie. The DVD isn't even widescreen. If you want to see a movie that is cool without trying so hard to be, then definitely watch Clerks or Doom Generation. If you want to see an average movie that perhaps offers a glimpse into the angst of teens without telling the full story, Pups is a decent romp. If you can imagine a younger version of SFW, that's pretty much what this movie is.

Oh, by the way....Burt Reynolds, your career called. It said it's jumping off a cliff.