Seraphim Falls

Year 12, Day 319 - 11/14/20 - Movie #3,694

BEFORE: I forgot to mention last time that when I got back from upstate, I started binge-watching the FX show "What We Do in the Shadows" on Hulu, to follow up the movie I watched on Halloween.  There are just two seasons, 10 episodes each, so on the nights where I don't have a movie to watch I can get through five episodes, so in just a few days, I'm almost done.  It's mostly the same gags as the movie, at least in Season 1, though they have a little more time to explore them, and it's different vampire characters, but they're essentially the same.  There was one episode in Season 1 where the main actors from the movie appeared, plus Tilda Swinton (who played a vampire in "Only Lovers Left Alive") plus there are a bunch of other cameos in that ep and throughout the series.  I'm enjoying it, and if there's a season 3 I can program my DVR to record that, now that I'm caught up.  

But where do I go from here?  There are only 6 more movies to watch in 2020, and 4 of them are earmarked for December.  So I'll have a lot of free time on my hands - I thought I'd have another part-time job by now, but I'm not getting any callbacks for seasonal help.  Do I move on to making my Christmas mix-tape (first-world problems, I know...) or catch up on organizing comic books (I'm constantly behind here) or re-play a favorite video-game?  There's one last Marvel show on Netflix to watch, and it's "Iron Fist", before the Marvel shows on Disney Plus start - or I could pick another series like "Portlandia" or "Lost" to possibly finish before the pandemic ends.  To be determined. 

Nate Mooney carries over from "One for the Money", because the only other films on my list with Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan are romance-based, and the only other films with Anjelica Huston is a horror film, plus "Mr. North", which is a film that got added at the last minute - and that was going to be tomorrow's film, but then I found a way to add one more Christmas movie at the end, so something's got to go.  Thankfully I can re-schedule "Mr. North" and today's film also happens to connect to the next film in line.  These are the things I have to keep an eye on, it's sort of a "multiple out" that helps me make adjustments to the count at the last minute.  Harry Dean Stanton is in "Mr. North", and I've got several films with him in them, so I can probably work it in next year.  And a rare birthday shout-out to Kevin J. O'Connor, who turns 57 tomorrow on November 15.  Sorry, I'm off by one day but I'm not delaying my review. 

THE PLOT: After the end of the Civil War, a colonel hunts down a man with whom he has a grudge. 

AFTER: When I think about modern Westerns, as distinguished from the Westerns of the 1950's, what I've noticed is that where it was once so easy to tell the heroes from the villains, the morals in the newer ones are a lot blurrier.  Maybe films reflect the times they were made in, in addition to the times where the story is set.  I think maybe the trend started in the 1960's and 70's where the emphasis was on violence, like the Sam Peckinpah films, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and so on.  "Silverado" and "Unforgiven" clouded the moral universe a little further, and now with films like "Hostiles", "Jane Got a Gun" and "The Ballad of Lefty Brown", in many ways we can no longer tell who the right-thinking people are, especially because they no longer wear those white hats to identify themselves.  

(Wikipedia says this trend is called "Revisionist Westerns", which sounds a little pejorative.  The name suggests that filmmakers are imposing the morals and viewpoints of our modern times on to the setting of the 1860's and 1870's.  This implies that it isn't any more "correct" than the films of the 1950's that did the same - and all we're really accomplishing is placating the current audience with films that appeal more to their sensibilities.  So maybe we need to find a better name for this sub-genre?  Then again, I think every genre is always going to be "revising" itself, at least on some level, otherwise studios are just going to keep making the same films, over and over.  Aren't romance films, sci-fi films, and horror movies forced to keep coming up with new ideas, which by their very nature are revising the genre?  TBD.  Clearly more research on this point is required.)

"Seraphim Falls" starts in the middle of the story, and all we know is that a group of men is tracking another man through the Nevada mountains.  Is the group a posse of lawmen hunting a fugitive criminal, or does the group have evil intent?  It's unclear by design.  Even knowing in advance that there's a grudge dating back to the Civil War isn't much help - which man was Union and which was Confederate?  Does that even matter?  I hate to phrase it like this, but couldn't there have been good and bad people on both sides?  It might be too simplistic to assume that whoever fought for the North was the right-thinking one, and whichever one represents the South is misguided - that's the same kind of thinking that tore our country apart in the 1860's and still lingers today, though in a different form.  We've just gone through another very divided time in the U.S., and it's not over yet - I shouldn't assume in this movie or in life that the people who live near me and share my ideology are "correct" and the people in the states further away who voted a different way are "wrong".  If this keeps up, we're potentially headed for a sequel to the Civil War.  

(I still have hope for America to come together, but it's going to take time, and effort, and part of the problem is that darned American spirit.  We're a country of rebels, our ancestors threw off the shackles of British Imperialism, they dumped the tea in Boston harbor and drank beer instead, got very unruly and after that, it was one rebellion after another.  The attitude that led to the Civil War sort of came from the same place, there have been Americans raging against the machine since day one, if you think about it.  The 1960's protests, people protesting over not enough civil rights, others rioting AGAINST civil rights, it seems like Americans took their cues from that James Dean movie.  What are we rebelling against?  Well, what have you got?  And now today the Trumpers are marching to protest the election results.  Fundamentally, one some level, it's just who we are.  When we're not happy, we make signs and march.

Unfortunately, we're never all on the same page.  Even when Biden takes office, his efforts to mandate mask-wearing, distribute the vaccine methodically and create conditions to stop the spread are no doubt going to be met with disdain and protest from the people who will refuse to give up any individual freedoms for the greater good.  Again, this reaction is part of the American spirit, but it's misguided and deadly in this case.  I think what we need to do is label the COVID virus as the enemy, declare war on the invisible threat, and then try to unite the people.  We don't all have to like the same things, but if we can HATE the same thing, we've got a shot.  Look what America accomplished when we were united against Nazi Germany, or Soviet Russia, or Islamic terrorists.  In World War II Americans ran scrap drives, paper drives, we built freedom gardens and ran blackout drills - it sounds exhausting, but it all united the country toward a common goal.  During the Cold War we worked to put men on the moon, a task that seemed impossible, but there was no way we were going to let the Soviets get there first!  And then after 9/11 we gave up individual freedoms through the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act, in order to have greater homeland security.  Reminding Americans of these accomplishments could be the key to ending the pandemic.  OK, rant over.)

Following the man in the forest, Gideon, sort of puts us on his side - he's injured, on the run, in desperate need of food and a horse, but he's resourceful enough to set traps and take out his pursuers, one by one.  When the action shifts back to the posse that's pursuing Gideon, led by Carver, we get more of a ruthless vibe, since they don't seem to have much compassion, and they intimidate anyone they encounter who's given aid to Gideon.  Still, until we get the whole back-story, we're still not 100% sure who we should be rooting for.  Liam Neeson usually plays the lone vigilante hero fighting a group of villains, like in "Taken" or "The Commuter", or a dozen other films, so it's unusual to see him on the other side of the equation.  (This film was released the year before "Taken", so it might predate the casting trend.). Pierce Brosnan's also noted for playing the resourceful hero, as in Remington Steele or James Bond, so is he playing to type here, or is something more surprising afoot?  Again, we have to wait for the flashback to fill in the details of the backstory - this is the proper use of flashbacks, in my opinion, especially when the movie starts in the middle and learning the prior details later then sheds light on what we've already learned.  

No spoilers here, ideally, but once we learn the true nature of what has gone before, we're set up for the conclusion, when both men have to cross the Nevada desert, one for the purposes of escape, and the other to continue his relentless quest.  Whether either action is still justified at this point is up to the viewer, as each man has had ample opportunity to end things, but neither can quite bring himself to force a resolution.  It's at this point that the film divulges into metaphor, and gets a bit mysterious.  Just before entering the desert, each man encounters a Native American by a watering hole.  Though not named in the film, the credits say he is named Charon, and that's the name of the ferryman in Greek mythology who would carry the souls of the dead across the river Styx to the underworld.  It's possible this character is fulfilling a similar role here, and that the desert isn't really a desert at all, or this is all symbolism for their final encounter.  

Once in the desert, both men also encounter Madame Louise, a con artist and snake-oil medicine salesman in a covered wagon.  They never hear her approach, so the question becomes - is she really there?  Does she represent the devil, since she makes deals with both men?  (I don't think I'm wrong here, the IMDB says her wagon reads "Louise C. Fair" which sounds a bit like Lucifer).  Is she some kind of mirage, or should we take her presence literally?  This seems largely open to interpretation.  Either way, it's a bit odd to introduce a character in the last few minutes of the film, she seems to be part of a desert deus ex machina no matter who or what she is.  And maybe you'll find the ending unsatisfying, but I'm hard-pressed to think of another one that wouldn't be.  

But I think the main take-away here is that some people were still fighting the Civil War for years after the actual conflict, even if they escaped out west, as far as they could go.  In the same way, our currently divided country could be fighting these black-or-white, liberal-or-conservative battles for decades, nothing's really been "resolved" just because one party's in power and the other one isn't.  If we don't start looking for common ground and stop treating every issue like it's all-or-nothing, right or wrong, we're all going to be lost wandering in the desert for a long time.  

Also starring Liam Neeson (last seen in "The Next Three Days"), Pierce Brosnan (last seen in "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga"), Michael Wincott (last seen in "Ghost in the Shell"), Xander Berkeley (last seen in "Faster"), Ed Lauter (last seen in "The Artist"), Tom Noonan (last seen in "Wonderstruck"), Kevin J. O'Connor (last seen in "Captive State"), John Robinson (last seen in "She's Funny That Way"), Anjelica Huston (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum"), Angie Harmon (last heard in "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker"), Robert Baker (last seen in "The Lone Ranger"), Wes Studi (last seen in "Hostiles"), Boots Southerland (ditto), Jimmi Simpson (last seen in "White House Down"), James Jordan (last seen in "Destroyer"), Shannon Zeller, Adon Cravens.

RATING: 6 out of 10 angry railroad workers

One for the Money

Year 12, Day 317 - 11/12/20 - Movie #3,693

BEFORE: I'm back from a couple of days in Sullivan County, NY.  We just needed to get away from NYC for a couple days, away from the election and away from the pandemic - too much news can make you crazy these days.  Of course there's no real way to get away from either situation, we still heard all the news about Biden's transition and Trump not accepting it, and the news about the potential vaccine, so even though we still had to wear masks while gambling in the casino and visiting antique shops and old-timey general stores, we still managed to have a good time and a nice little break.  We found ourselves in Bethel and decided to track down the site of the original Woodstock Festival, where there's a monument overlooking the festival field, which I think they JUST finally finished cleaning up like last year.  That's how much trash remained after the 3-day festival in 1969.  JK.  Then we took in all that Monticello, Liberty, Neversink and Callicoon had to offer us - which wasn't much because most everything up there had started shutting down for the season, or in some cases never opened up at all, like the Bethel Flea Market.  It didn't help that we were selecting activities from a pre-pandemic 2020 local guidebook, which never got corrected after COVID hit, but we learned that it was a good idea to call each establishment first before driving across the county to visit it.  

But after just two days upstate in those sleepy little towns and villages, it's a bit tough to get back into my regular fast-paced city routine.  And even if I were to find a simple little town and think for a minute, "Hey, it might be nice to move up here, get away from it all..." after a week of being away from it all, I'd no doubt feel the urge to rush right back to it all.  Or I'd be stuck there and end up bored out of my mind.  

This was supposed to be the "Black Widow" slot, with Scarlett Johansson carrying over from "The Perfect Score", but we all know that's impossible now.  I preserved my original idea for a chain (or, umm, close to it) for as long as I could, but now I just have to get to the end of the year.  (Programming note: I could have chosen "Not Another Teen Movie" tonight, it also would get me to tomorrow's film, so all roads lead to Rome at this point, but I chose this one over that one because that one has a larger cast, and it should be easier to link to next year, if it stays on Netflix that long.). And after one or two more films, just like those seasonal upstate motels, I'm shutting down for a month, and I'll re-open for business a few days before Christmas.  So instead of Scarlett Johansson, Leonardo Nam carries over from "The Perfect Score".  

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Bounty Hunter" (Movie #3,460)

THE PLOT: Unemployed and newly-divorced Stephanie Plum lands a job at her cousin's bail-bond business, where her first assignment puts her on the trail of a wanted local cop from her romantic past.  

AFTER: We've all heard from time to time about failed TV pilots, where a proposed series shoots its first episode, then they do some test screenings with focus groups, maybe with a little luck that episodes makes it to the air, but then it doesn't pull in the ratings that the network was expecting, and the whole series gets shelved.  Well, this is a (perhaps rare) example of a failed film franchise pilot - there are probably others, but nothing's leaping to mind right now.  A little internet research, however, leads me to some other ones, like "Green Lantern", "Avatar: The Last Airbender", "John Carter", 2013's "The Lone Ranger", "Eragon", "The Golden Compass", and of course a film I watched in early October, "The Dark Tower".  All of these films would have loved to have sequels, but they were all one-and-done - though the "His Dark Materials" franchise, which includes "The Golden Compass", recently got resurrected as an HBO series.  

Those examples, though, all come from the land of comic books and dark fantasy, so perhaps "One for the Money" is unique in being a drama (dramedy?) franchise that could have/should have been a multi-part film franchise, but just couldn't lock down an audience.  The 1998 movie "Out of Sight" is perhaps another one, based on the books of Elmore Leonard, and I think instead of making more movies, the female lead character appeared in a "Karen Sisco" TV series instead.  Franchises die all the time, due to changing audience needs or perhaps lack of upkeep, like the "Chronicles of Narnia" series that only produced 3 out of a possible 7 books by C.S. Lewis before fizzling out.  "One for the Money" was the first movie to feature Stephanie Plum, who came from a series of novels written by Janet Evanovich, and there are 27 books in that series to date.  But now it's eight years later, with no sign of future books like "Two for the Dough" or "Three to Get Ready" hitting the big screen, and maybe that's for the best.  

Is this a terrible film?  Not really, it's more average than anything else, but I think that's part of the problem.  A terrible film's more likely to hold my interest, because I'm going to at least pay attention to how bad it is, how many things don't make sense or don't work from a narrative standpoint, and then I'll have something to complain about.  But an average film's just going to put me to sleep, because it's neither here nor there, it's not going to thrill me or piss me off, I'm just likely to tune it out, and that's what happened here.  I only made it to the one-hour mark of this 90-minute film before falling asleep and waking up during the closing credits.  Of course, I could just go back to 0:55 and try to pick up where I left off, which I did, but of course by then the damage has been done, I couldn't really get back in the groove or remember who THAT character is or where he fits in to the plot.  

No worries, I can read the whole plot summary on Wikipedia and piece things together again - so let's start with the ridiculous premise, which has a newly-divorced woman taking a job tracking down criminals who don't appear in court on time, not really a "bounty hunter" per se, just someone who finds people and drags them in to court.  But deciding to suddenly enter this field with no prior experience seems very foolhardy and possibly even counter-productive, there's not even a consideration made to how she's going to actually DO this job, or deal with rowdy people who don't want to be brought to the police, how she's going to defend herself if things get rough, does she need any training with firearms, etc. etc.  Nope, let's just gloss over all that and get her out on the road so she can start kicking ass and taking names, even though she's got zero experience in this field.  Look, I'm job-hunting right now myself, and it's rough out there in NYC right now - I've applied for retail jobs, something I said I'd never do again, but these are desperate times.  Still, I wouldn't go work tomorrow as a bartender or a food preparer, because I know those require special training, which I don't have.  (Ideally I could have gone back to work in movie theaters, where I do have experience, only they haven't re-opened in NYC yet.)

Then we've got to deal with the fact that Stephanie not only GETS this job that she's not qualified for (her cousin conveniently runs the bail-bond business, and she also conveniently has personal blackmail material to use against him) but the big fugitive in the area is a former cop wanted for murder, and he just happens to be a guy she used to date in high school.  She says she's not still looking for vindication following their break-up, but I think we can all figure out that's not true.  The murder case against him has a lot of missing pieces, it seems - a lot of the main characters involved are either dead or missing, so it seems we're never going to come close to figuring out what happened.  Anyway, it's not the job of the skip tracer to solve the case, that's police work, and Stephanie's not a cop - but the screenwriter can't seem to tell the difference between a bounty hunter and a police officer.   Also, being personally involved in the case can't really be much of a help either in this line of work, it's probably highly unprofessional to track down your ex-boyfriend and bring him in, another little thing that gets glossed over here.  

There's a missing prostitute, a dead heroin dealer, the prostitute's boxer boyfriend, and the boxer's manager all circling the case, so (again) even though it's NOT in her job description, Stephanie sets out to figure out what really happened, instead of just finding her ex and bringing him in.  Perhaps this is part of the reason for this film's lack of success, there's no clear narrative in the constantly-shifting goals of the main character.  Other cases that she works, like the nudist fugitive that she has to bring in, seem very tangential to the main narrative, and are essentially just time-fillers that go nowhere.  And if her ex, Morelli, is truly innocent, then why is he hiding out and not showing up for work?  Why can't he clear his name on his own, if he's such a good cop then why does he need Stephanie's help?  Eventually it all comes together, but I'm still not sure that it all lines up properly.  

Overall there's that feeling that most of the actors were just phoning it in here, especially Heigl.  She got nominated for a 2012 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress for this, but lost (?) that unwanted award to Kristen Stewart for the double whammy of "Snow White and the Huntsman" and "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2".  Yeah, that seems about right.  It also feels like this was made during the time when Hollywood was striving to release films with strong female lead characters, though they hadn't quite figured out the formula yet, since there was still the requirement for at least two near-nude scenes.  Sure, there's a way to incorporate both nude scenes and female empowerment, but that combination is not on display here, not when the female lead is surprised in the shower, and ends up handcuffed in place while naked, and forced to call a man on the phone to help her.  Sorry, try again - plus, which screenwriter's weird fetish was that? 

Nobody really comes out on top here, not bounty hunters, not women, not cops, and certainly not New Jersey.  Why not just listen to Grandma and date that nice (but admittedly boring) fellow, Bernie Kuntz?  At one point the film uses a hamster on a wheel as a metaphor about running in place without getting anywhere, and the same concept can really be applied to the entire film.    

Also starring Katherine Heigl (last seen in "The Ugly Truth"), Jason O'Mara (last seen in "Wakefield"), Daniel Sunjata (last seen in "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past"), John Leguizamo (last seen in "The Lincoln Lawyer"), Sherri Shepherd (last seen in "Top Five"), Debbie Reynolds (last seen in "Bright Lights"), Debra Monk (last seen in "Demolition"), Nate Mooney (last seen in "Girlfriend's Day"), Adam Paul, Fisher Stevens (last seen in "Motherless Brooklyn"), Ana Reeder (last seen in "You Don't Know Jack"), Patrick Fischler (last seen in "Rules Don't Apply"), Ryan Michelle Bathe, Annie Parisse (last seen in "Definitely, Maybe"), Danny Mastrogiorgio (last seen in "God's Pocket"), Gavin-Keith Umeh, Louis Mustillo (last seen in "Bobby"), Joshua Elijah Reese, Olga Merediz (also last seen in "Top Five"), Harry O'Toole, John Joseph Williams, Angela Pietropinto (last seen in "It Could Happen to You"), Jack Erdie, Alexis Treadwell, Michael Laurence (last seen in "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"), Jarrod DiGiorgi, David Flick (last seen in "The Next Three Days")

RATING: 5 out of 10 picked locks 

The Perfect Score

Year 12, Day 313 - 11/8/20 - Movie #3,692

BEFORE: Scarlett Johansson carries over again from "Under the Skin" to her last film of the year.  As I've pointed out before, this is the path that would have allowed me to watch "Black Widow" in theaters, only I'm here and the film isn't, it's been very publicly delayed until next year.  That film would have been my link to 2019's "Hellboy" reboot, which is now also delayed for me until 2021.  And I was therefore forced to find another path to Christmas movies and the end of 2020's 300 films, which I have now done.  Eight slots left this year, and I know how I want to fill them, and the chain will be unbroken, until I start fresh again next January.  (But even though I can't connect from here to "Black Widow", I would still like to clear today's film off my books, and I'll worry about next year's connections later.)

After this posts, we'll be driving to upstate New York (OK, mid-upstate) for a couple days, our first real road-trip since the pandemic started.  Just a couple days at a casino, maybe some nice restaurants or brew-pubs, whatever we can find.  We can have fun anywhere, even during these troubled times.  We still have to be careful, because this pandemic's not over, but upstate NY seems relatively safe compared with other parts of the country.  We haven't turned the corner yet, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I think now we're set up to do the work to maybe approach that corner, so we can turn it one day.  

Before leaving, I took a little time yesterday to do some of those tasks around the house to get ready for winter, like replacing the screen in the door with the glass pane, and sweeping up the leaves in the lower driveway, because if I don't do that once in a while, they can clog the drain and then heavy rain or melting snow might build up and leak into the basement.  Even there, I found a political metaphor, because I was thinking about drains, and how someone who promised to "drain the swamp" did nothing even close to that, and instead hired a bunch of corrupt people for government positions who all then turned on him, as they should.  And the person vowing to drain the swamp was in fact the biggest clog in the whole drain, and now that the drain is unclogged, maybe things can start flowing again, as they should.  We'll see.  

THE PLOT: Six high school seniors decide to break into the Princeton Testing Center so they can steal the answers to their upcoming SAT tests and all get perfect scores.  

AFTER: I'm going to try my best to not connect this film to the election, because that was never the plan, plus I had "Jojo Rabbit" already this week, and that was enough, connecting Trump to Hitler.  Plus there's no confirmed voter fraud, nobody tried to rig this election, as far as we know, except of course for the guy who was complaining the loudest about voter fraud and which votes were bogus because they were counted after the deadline (even though they arrived before).  Nice try, a-hole, but we've had four years to figure you out and now all the smart people know when you're lying.  My concern, of course, is that not everyone in the country falls into that "smart" group, which explains why the worst President ever still got like 47% of the votes cast.  Think about the term "average intelligence", and then realize half of the voters in this country are dumber than that.  That's just math.  

It's time to move on, I need to get to a place where not every movie reminds me of Trump and what a terrible collective choice got made four years ago.  Here's to brighter days ahead, but at the same time this is when the real work has to begin, not just uniting the country (or trying to) but really taking on the virus for the first time, using science and trying to get everybody on board with that.  Over 40% of the country may not play along, because they've been lied to for so long, and those lies were easier, more seductive, and ultimately representing a dark path lined with bigotry and racism and laziness, and it's going to be hard to get some people off of that road.  Still, we have to try, with a leader that has some interest in, you know, leading, doing the work, we may have a chance.  A slim one, but doing something seems better than doing nothing but playing golf and eating KFC.  

Here comes the segue - tonight's film is also about taking the easier path, passing the SAT exam by getting an advanced look at the answers.  Of course this is wrong, I think the film makes that clear at both the beginning and the end, cheating is wrong.  But then the film comes close to maybe almost justifying the actions of breaking into the test center and getting the master answer key, because traditionally the SAT might be statistically biased against some minorities, possibly women, and also dumb people, if you think about it.  (If you think about it, nearly every test is biased against dumb people, and there are a lot of them.).  But even if this fact is true, that the test is biased, does that justify cheating?  No, it does not - because there are things that students can do to improve their scores, like taking a prep course, or studying, or taking the test several times.  It's possible to get better at math and verbal skills, it just takes time and practice and a will to succeed.  

Am I biased on this point?  Probably - I never had too much trouble in high school, unless you count P.E. of course.  I knew I wasn't the smartest person in my grade (this was perhaps only true in elementary school) and I wasn't going to be the valedictorian, but I survived a full complement of Advanced Placement courses, and standardized tests were a breeze for me.  Even if I didn't know the answer outright, I was a pretty good guesser - if you can eliminate one or more of the multiple choice answers, your odds improve substantially.  I might have been the best test-taker my high school ever had, if I can boast for just a minute.  When the PSAT results came in during junior year, another "A" student and I got called to the office, and I just knew it would be for a good reason.  I think I got 710/740 on the PSAT, and I ended up getting a small college scholarship from that (not enough for NYU tuition, but hey, every little bit helps).  I took the SAT itself only once, got 670/750 and figured that would be good enough for film school.  

This is where "The Perfect Score" almost makes a good point about the test, because the lead character wants to study architecture at Cornell, and perhaps neither his math or verbal scores from the SAT should be held against him when applying for an architecture program.  But then again, I can see how math might be important to building planning, making blueprints and such.  But as we know, and the film ignores, the SAT score is only one of several things that college admission officers will consider, there's also overall GPA, extracurricular activities, community service, teacher recommendations, and the all-important essay questions.  All college plans should also include multiple applications, safety schools, and back-ups for the back-ups.  Just saying.  Anyone who says, "I need to go to THAT school and study THAT program" could be setting themselves up for a fall - plus, many people also change careers and end up working in a different field than the one they studied for.  

The SAT is merely a marker on the road, it's not a destination.  So before breaking in to the testing facility to ace the exam, perhaps these six conspirators should have weighed the benefit against the potential drawbacks a little more carefully.  What would happen if they got caught, wouldn't that be a greater negative mark on their permanent record, worse than "failed the exam on the first try"?  Again, I propose that a smarter, more sensible plan would have been for these six students to form a study group, because as we learn late in the picture, they actually have a math genius and a verbal expert already among them, so why didn't somebody suggest this as a viable plan?  Huge NITPICK POINT.  Some of the reasons for banding together and stealing the answers are also quite stupid - the "A" level student couldn't complete the SAT test because there was a math question about a woman and a man getting on separate trains, and she got so caught up in their "story" that she couldn't do the math problem.  Are you kidding me?  This sounds more like she has ADHD than anything else, and a little Ritalin could clear that right up.  

Meanwhile, the motivations of some of the other characters are just as suspect - the star basketball player is the secret math genius, but apparently he's concerned about the verbal section, and what his mother will do to him if he doesn't get a good enough score to get into St. John's University.  OK, but getting caught cheating would also get him into trouble, so is it really worth the risk?  Another character's father works for Educational Testing Services, so perhaps she's just got daddy issues.  And the stoner character seems to just be along for the ride, because it's "something to do".  This all feels like lazy, lazy screenwriting if you ask me.  Plus it's so very convenient that their high school just happens to be in the same town as the company that creates and monitors the exam nationwide.  Also very lazy, what are the odds of this, how many cities and towns are there in the U.S.?   

It's a little odd here to see the future Captain America actor and the future Black Widow actress working together to do something wrong.  But then again, it's a team heist movie at its core, and is a team superhero movie really that different in the end?  What doesn't really ring true is that in the end, nearly every character here finds a different reason to NOT cheat on the test.  WHAT?  After all that pseudo-justification for doing the wrong thing, everybody suddenly has a change of heart and decides to do the right thing?  I find that hard to believe - and again, couldn't they have just buckled down and studied in the first place, which would have saved everybody, especially me, a great deal of time and aggravation?  If only these kids had spent their time learning how to prepare for the test, instead of figuring out how to break into the testing center, they would have all been much better off.

I know, I know, that wouldn't have made for a very interesting movie, but I think in the end it's the best moral lesson to walk away from the film with.  Everyone needs to buckle down, put in the time and do the work in order to achieve success.  There are (or at least should be) no shortcuts in life. 

NITPICK POINT #2: Darius Miles is a real NBA player, so I can understand why he's not a great actor, and his delivered lines are a bit difficult to understand, or believe.  OK, so then why can I say the same thing about Scarlett Johansson and Erika Christensen?

NITPICK POINT #3: Once the team is in the ETS office, and they realize they can't print out the answer sheet, why was the solution to spend hours taking the entire test together, which still would have resulted in them collectively being unsure about the answers?  Wouldn't it have been easier to call up the answer sheet on the computer screen and then write THAT down?  I would say, "Why not just take photos of the test questions on the screen?", but this film was released JUST a bit before smartphones with cameras were a thing.  Still, taking the test would take hours, a time period that could have allowed for a security sweep to find them, while just jotting down the letters of the answer would probably take 30 minutes, tops.  Just saying. 

Also starring Chris Evans (last seen in "Knives Out"), Erika Christensen (last seen in "The Banger Sisters"), Bryan Greenberg (last seen in "Bride Wars"), Darius Miles, Leonardo Nam (last seen in "Vantage Point"), Matthew Lillard (last seen in "Serial Mom"), Fulvio Cecere (last seen in "No Reservations"), Vanessa Angel (last seen in "King of New York"), Lorena Gale (last seen in "The X-Files: I Want to Believe"), Tyra Ferrell (last seen in "Tapeheads"), Bill Mackenzie, Dan Zukovic, Iris Quinn (last seen in "The Twilight Saga; Eclipse"), Lynda Boyd (last seen in "The Age of Adaline"), Serge Houde (ditto), Michael Ryan, Robert Clarke (last seen in "Code Name: The Cleaner"), Kyle Labine, Alf Humphreys, Mike Jarvis, Steve Makaj (last seen in "Two for the Money"), Jay Brazeau (last seen in "Horns"), Rebecca Reichert. 

RATING: 4 out of 10 password guesses