Light it Up

Writer / Director:  Craig Bolotin

Starring: Usher Raymond, Forest Whitaker, Marcello Robinson, Rosario Dawson, Robert Ri'chard, Judd Nelson, Fredro Starr, Sara Gilbert (I), Clifton Collins Jr., Glynn Turman, Vic Polizos, Vanessa L. Williams

Review by The Ranting WolfCastle

    In light of a new fad that's sweeping high schools nationwide (school shootings), I'm not sure if a plot like this was really in the best interest of its creators.

    Their principal HATES them.  The school security guard (Whitaker) is a huge JERK.  The window BROKE.  It's REALLY COLD in the classroom.  There are TOO MANY students in each class.  The text books SUCK.  The only man (Judd Nelson) that is on their side JUST GOT FIRED.  What now?  Do what any of the rest of us levelheaded people would do - Take a cop hostage, and demand text books and other academic novelties.

    Well, I saw this movie with a friend, and nobody else was in the theatre.  Usually I like to bitch about some kind of atmospheric flaw about the theatre, like there was a child crying, or a fat guy sat next to me, and while it was a little cold in the theatre, that's hardly anything to really bitch about.  So I guess I'm going to have to tell you what I really thought about the film...

    First off, I think there were a great deal of undertones in the script that were never flat out said, but strongly implied.  The film portrays almost every authority figure in a bad light.  The cops are racist, the parents are child beaters, the principal doesn't care, blah blah blah.  We've heard it all before.  Of course there are a few exceptions, but moreover everyone is bad except the people committing the crime.  Leading the viewer to believe that the system is causing these students to throw their lives away.  The students are of course all exemplary.  None of them have ever done anything wrong, and they are heroes for taking a hostage and standing up for their rights.  The only problem I have with that scenario, is even though they did mistakingly shoot the cop which led to the whole hostage thing, it seems to me that smart kids like these would of had more brains than to take the cop hostage.  Smart people don't generally commit crimes just because they find themselves in the position to do so.

    The acting was good.  There was nothing so terribly insincere that would warrant an attack by yours truly, but I did kind of have a problem with the dialogue.  The characters seemed to get smarter as the film went on.  In the beginning they all murmured tragic slang and cliché phrases, but as the plot became more serious the characters seemed to drop a mask that didn't exist.

    This movie seemd about two hours long, but was actually only about 90 minutes.  There were a lot of filler scenes involving Venessa Williams and the cops outside.  The script also had holes, like why didn't the cop see his family anymore?  It seemed to side step issues such as this one, but then went in to great detail, even involving a flashback, when it mentioned one student's father.  The cop was just as big a character as the kid so I'm not sure why Bolotin felt the need to elaborate on one and leave the audience in the dark about the other.  It felt like an insincere attempt to give the police officer more depth and emotion.  

    At the end of the film there's an epilogue.  I think if a movie needs an epilogue than it didn't do it's job in the first place.  I think epilogues as a whole are evil.  Like the fruits of the devil.

    Overall this was an entertaining movie.  I think the studio isn't pushing it hard, because it blames society for dysfunction in schools and nobody wants to be reminded of the recent tragedies this film addresses.  Light it Up tries so hard to be powerful but the viewer finds it hard to take this film seriously.  It portrays criminals as heroes, and authority figures as fascists.  If Bolotin wanted it to be powerful he should of ended the film when the story ended, and made the characters easier to sympathize with.

60% = C+