State's Evidence (2006)

Genre: Indie film/Thriller         Time: 1hr 30 mins        Director:  Benjamin Louis

Quick summary: Six teens decide to record their final days leading up to their agreed-upon suicide pact.

One important thing to note is that this film is very dialogue driven, mainly with the monologues by the characters to the camera. So not much visually entertaining happens. As well as this the dialogue is very cringe at times, almost feeling like some middle-aged man wrote what he thought teenagers spoke like. They go in circles of righteous vanity and very bad cliches. 

My first impression was that the directing was bad, but the story and idea were good. I honestly kept watching for that, it's very compelling and you are interested in what is going to happen within the first slow burner half of the film.

I wasn't sure about the main character, Scot", who tells his very eccentric group of friends about his idea to record his final day and then kill himself, they ALL think it's so cool and amazing, and that they too MUST commit suicide along with him. Honestly, I knew a lot of people who would act like this in high school so it isn't unbelievable, it's just the characters that come across as unbelievable. 

 The young actors were fairly mediocre, aside from Kris Lemche as "Patrick" who was the only one really able to create a compelling character with some sort of screen presence. I did really enjoy his monologs, even if they were very uncomfortable and were extremely wrong morally. 

 The main protagonist, Scott speaks like a programmed robot, so filled with technical analytical phrases, and his friends have a bit of this too. Even though they're supposed to be alternative, in this film, a hodgepodge of subcultures and social backgrounds so that ALL BASES of teen anxiety are covered, it's hard to imagine anyone being that out of touch with the world they live in, and moreover, Scott is able to rationally convince the school bully to return their camera, that he stole, with this very irritating way of speaking. I really don't know who thought that would actually happen.

The directing, combined with a very stagey unraveling of events was very unpolished, though it does add to the illusion that a bunch of teenagers is recording this BUT the film constantly flicks between messy handheld cameras in a blue-grey toned small rectangle, to long wide shots in a much warmer tone. 

In a lot of the scenarios I don't think that would happen, it's almost as if the main characters are invisible to everyone. Like nobody comments when Scott brings out the camera in the middle of the classroom, not even the teacher at first.  After a while he does, but only so Scott can go on a speech about how nothing matters.

This movie had all the right ingredients for an amazing diamond in the rough. However, it falls short with its endless lists of tired clichés that come off as another "adult's" perception of teenagehood. The finale is a bit of a letdown. Since the beginning, you've known things would spiral out of control. Patrick's maniac story left a bloody pink elephant standing in every scene he graced that nobody could ignore. Once Patrick gets control of the realm of storytelling, however, there is a sparkling gem in this otherwise lacklustre ending. Patrick spins a monologue about human beings which is the dark side of Scott's philosophy. When Scott is given his piece as well, he finally admits the reason behind his decision to kill himself. His dialogue has deeply lacked emotional input, as he is a man of the mind; his final words in the film dig up that buried emotion and tell us who the man behind the mind really is.

As poorly as this film is produced, there is something appealing about watching this film. It does open your eyes to how reckless teenagers can be, and there are some subplots to this film that ring true in many people, as well as this there are a lot of warning signs highlighted to the viewers to show potentially when people are planning to kill themselves. 

6/10