A disturbing film whose imagery and context lingers on to the following days. Indeed, I find myself waking up with disturbing dreams clearly originating from this film.
The film, while suffering from the usual excess of cliches (the local sheriff – the horny teens – the crazed fundamentalists) and improbable plot twists still manages to achieve a very disturbing result. We start with a murky reference to the center piece christian fundamentalist cult marching in some vague protest clearly expressing extreme homophobic views. We then jump to 3 stereotypical teens anxious to get laid and somehow, improbably responding to some vague internet site and making a date to get them all laid by the lurking, and not particularly attractive, bait set out by the fundamentalist cult.
The boys are drugged and we cut back to the fundamentalist cult as they elevate gay bashing to new heights, murdering suspected deviants with impunity. As the boys speed to thier rendezvoous they sideswipe the local sheriff. He sends out his deputy to find the car and, as they say, the plot thickens as the deputy is shot and what might be the real meat of the movie finally comes up. The Feds ATF are inexplicably called in. They fear bad press which might result from a shootout or otherwise bungling the affair and they are directed to simply kill every person, man woman or child present. In others words, we jump from gay bashing fundamentalists to an out of control government, prepared to shoot anyone under the guise of counter-terrorism.
With all this button pushing going on, this should come out as a terrible movie, but somehow, despite the blatant stereotypying, a visceral gut wrench is achieved.
Probably won’t help to watch this one twice – once was enough.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0873886/
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Rating: 6.0/10 (1 vote cast)
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