This is a interesting and frightening film, worth a viewing by every parent of teenage children. Whether they know it or not, their children at least know children like these; they are living in a world that includes this reality. Some of the best insights are in the portrayals of the parents.
Every one of them believes that their child has fallen in with the wrong crowd, and they are all right. What they don't seem to be able to conceive of is that their child IS part of the wrong crowd and why it is wrong. None if then could be described as a good kid being lead astray, but all of them, except the psychologically monstrous Bobby, do have some appealing, or at least pathetic qualities, and might have been saved by adult intervention. But there is none and they are lost from the beginning. These parents can't see their children, don't know their children, seem to be afraid of them, afraid of confronting them either because they fear losing them or pushing them into even more destructive behavior. They seem to care, but not enough to risk embarking on a messy intervention. They only want to relate to them as the accessible children they used to be.
So the children (even though are 16-22, they are emotionally 8-10) are so addled by drugs and alcohol and sex that have no concept of the reality and consequences of actions. They do seem to have a good grasp of the one fact that their lives are essentially hopeless, what they are doing is unsustainable and can not lead to anything but self-destruction. They know it, but it is no more real to them than a video game. Nothing is real; you just hit the replay button and do it over. And there seems to be no one in their world, but other teenagers just like themselves. This includes the "hit man" they have mistaken for an adult, more competent than themselves, able to lead them in safely freeing themselves from the sociopath who main interest in life is controlling them, torturing them, convincing them they are worthless and helpless. It is gut wrenching to watch them deteriorate, individually and as a group, in the face of the actual murder and its aftermath.
Watching them is like watching school children hijack their own school bus and accelerate toward a brick wall: watching the crash in slow motion, fascinated and helpless, seeing the expressions on their faces change, seeing them looking at one another, saying "it wasn't my idea, I didn't do it, I didn't mean it" as the gap closes. The conclusion, the prison sentences, is devastating.
Every one of them believes that their child has fallen in with the wrong crowd, and they are all right. What they don't seem to be able to conceive of is that their child IS part of the wrong crowd and why it is wrong. None if then could be described as a good kid being lead astray, but all of them, except the psychologically monstrous Bobby, do have some appealing, or at least pathetic qualities, and might have been saved by adult intervention. But there is none and they are lost from the beginning. These parents can't see their children, don't know their children, seem to be afraid of them, afraid of confronting them either because they fear losing them or pushing them into even more destructive behavior. They seem to care, but not enough to risk embarking on a messy intervention. They only want to relate to them as the accessible children they used to be.
So the children (even though are 16-22, they are emotionally 8-10) are so addled by drugs and alcohol and sex that have no concept of the reality and consequences of actions. They do seem to have a good grasp of the one fact that their lives are essentially hopeless, what they are doing is unsustainable and can not lead to anything but self-destruction. They know it, but it is no more real to them than a video game. Nothing is real; you just hit the replay button and do it over. And there seems to be no one in their world, but other teenagers just like themselves. This includes the "hit man" they have mistaken for an adult, more competent than themselves, able to lead them in safely freeing themselves from the sociopath who main interest in life is controlling them, torturing them, convincing them they are worthless and helpless. It is gut wrenching to watch them deteriorate, individually and as a group, in the face of the actual murder and its aftermath.
Watching them is like watching school children hijack their own school bus and accelerate toward a brick wall: watching the crash in slow motion, fascinated and helpless, seeing the expressions on their faces change, seeing them looking at one another, saying "it wasn't my idea, I didn't do it, I didn't mean it" as the gap closes. The conclusion, the prison sentences, is devastating.