Savage Youth

If this was a standalone movie with an original story, I would think it's good story. The acting is good and the performances are believable. But the story is flat and confusing without context. The problem is the fact that the story has context that the writer completely decided to ignore. The movie's climax portrays an incident that's almost innocent, a sad tragedy of four misguided youth that almost says that ..."if only these kids had better parents, opportunities or choices , the tragedy wouldn't have happened." In reality this is based on a true story that the writer admitted to researching through social media and not talking to any family members or even the killers. He also admitted to attending the funerals and trials but used very little of the real story. He cloaks that decision with a " exhaustive creative research" justification. The problem with all of this is that in his attempt to tell a "real" story, he portrays an "alternative facts" story that's actually more Hollywood than reality. There are millions of misguided kids out their that lived in a racially tense environments that didn't murder two of their acquaintances in cold blood and that alone would make a great movie. But this real story is far from that. The real story is a story of a very privileged criminal that was allowed to torment his friends and their families without barely having a record before he committed this crime. The men and girls admitted to killing the other two and having sex on top of the dead bodies. He also admitted to trying to skin one of victims face off in order to post it on Instagram. All of this was left out of the movie because I guess it would've spoiled The good kids gone wrong creative story. My point is , a story about the troubles of growing up in the Midwest would've been an amazing study even without murder. But to take a real life murder to creatively alter reality just seems lazy and disrespectful.

Wow, the white director (I'm white) really took artistic license with this steaming pile of garbage. Knowing the actual story I couldn't even make it all the way through. The white guys are portrayed as Insane Clown Posse fans waxing poetic in a love story while the black victims of these murders are portrayed as mask wearing, gun toting drug dealers. I guess artistic license doesn't equal telling a remotely accurate story.

This film has a very dramatic story line and amazing acting, especially from Grace Victoria Cox who is beautiful and fascinating in this visually stunning feature. Many people don't know how hard it is to pull off an indie film like this with only limited resources and time. Yet, even for a big budget film, it was truly very enjoyable! It is definitely worth the time and money!

A solid story line, splendid realistic acting by every actor in this movie, in particular by Will Brittain, who in my opinion will be a star! And great direction. In particular, the cinematography was excellent. I love the work of Magela Crosignani. The end was surprising, in the manner in which violence was portrayed. It is almost imagined and implied, but never really shown. Watched this movie and was pleasantly surprised. Well worth it. We need more movies like this.

My gf saw the trailer for this online and thought it looked interesting enough to watch. The trailer was far more entertaining than the movie. So many scenes felt like they just dragged on just to go nowhere. The characters also seemed to make really weird decisions that pretty much no one would actually do in real life out of nowhere but they had to do them to move the stupid plot of this movie along. Just don't waste your time.

Slice of life from the dredges. Decent acting, well shot. I was left with some questions that I don't plan to revisit for clarity, yet felt believable in its execution. Didn't over play the violence, in a genre that usually leans on it. Very entertaining.