Havoc (2005)

If you're not ready, don't jump. And if you don't want to ruin your teen memories of Anne Hathaway as Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries or Ella in Ella Enchanted, don't watch this movie. Really. It's a perfect turnaround of her acting. I can't believe she dared to take the role. It's more than Rachel Getting Married, I guess. Well, maybe there's a reason why she decided to take this role. Yeah, I get it. She wanted to explore her acting ability, which I think is good. She's quite convincing as a black people copycat. But still, do you really have to do those naked and sex scenes, my sweet Anne??? Thank God you're not the one who did the 3 some.

I heard of this movie from one of my Hommes. What an effed up movie! Meaning it was a hoot watching the white kids trying to get all ghetto and stuff. Fake as all the kids were, that really is a slice of life of the kids acting nowadays, in tha Barrio or the Suburbia - fast and wild, drugs and sex go hand in hand in this move and the real world.Parents would freak out at the actual stuff happening under their own noses.But back to Life. What impressed most was the acting stretch that Anne H was willing to do get away from her good girl roles, by stretch I meant Naked, hell yeah! Bijou P did a fine job of stretching too, the same eager to please loose girl looking to please in any way she can. Now that's real acting. Anyways. The rest of the cast did a good job performing the frontin' roles, all attitude was all they needed.I gotta say reading why this film was made is a sad tragic story from the writer's untimely passing, it's a great dedication from a mind so young. In the end, fun to watch, like a slow moving car chase.

I bought this on DVD very cheaply, almost exclusively because I thought the title was great. Checking the film out on IMDb upon my return home and I wondered if I would ever watch it. So many reviewers tell of the irritating way the male rich kids are always aping the gangster classes and the girls talking in that affected cluck-cluck way. The fact hip-hop does little for me looked like I was set for some fast forwarding. How wrong I was. This is one heck of a good movie. OK, I don't suppose every little rich boy is quite as silly as those depicted and same goes for the girls, BUT there is more than an element of truth here. Even as an oldie living in the UK, I am aware of kids speaking and acting like this, so I'm pretty certain it happens in the US. We must have copied from somewhere! I'm also sure that East LA could never look as potentially glamorous as this BUT, this was written by a young girl of 16 and at the very least this is fantasy. And why would this fantasy persist? Why might poor little rich girls want to risk all for a potentially exciting bout of carnal pleasure? Why indeed BUT, surely we have seen this theme explored a thousand times and always we exclaim that a woman could not be so foolish, that she would surely stay with her own kind. Oh yeah? Anyway it happens and it is depicted here with great candour and skill. A very grubby and absorbing morality tale of what happens when a couple of nubile white chicks stumble into an episode of 'The Wire'.

Many people complain that this film is anything but good, and they dismiss it as simple trash that overreached while trying to be affecting. Well, I'm not one of them. I am one of those who think this is, in fact, an interesting film, and very well worth the hour and a half I spent watching it.I suppose most of the negative reviews towards this film come from the fact that it did not reach the expectations people had of it. I mean take director Barbara Kopple (yes, the documentary genius director), screenwriter Stephen Gaghan (who also wrote classics like Traffic and Syriana) and Anne Hathaway in a powerfully explosive role...you'd normally expect a highly artistic, disturbingly deep and intelligent film. This film isn't any of the above, even though it TRIES to be. Nevertheless, as I've mentioned before, it does have an interesting enough plot.It's about two rich teenagers (Anne Hathaway and Bijou Phillips) who are going through their rebellious teenager stage where drinking, heavy flirting and hanging out with the tough guys is in vogue. They decide to cross over from their posh neighborhoods into downtown East side, (the Latino side, really) where hard drugs, gang violence and gun fights are at the order of the day. These teens are impressed (to put it mildly) with how "real" everything seems in the East side, and are soon begging to be admitted into the hazardous Latino gang...with expectable detrimental results.The film tries to discuss really profound and disturbing points of view, and even though it DOES tackle some issues, it all seems a bit off. Hathaway is, of course, a revelation in her first challenging role, but the rest of the actors are a bit off. In fact, everything about the movie is a bit off. Even Stephen Gaghan, who writes the screenplay, offers us a probing look into the breaches of society and the cause and effect that lead our two protagonists in a downward spiral, but he refuses to reach deeper to actually make the audience care and feel enveloped by the psychological turmoil going on-screen.I'm sure I'm portraying this to be a base and horrible film, but it isn't. I feel I watched something entertaining and that serves as an illustration to other similar films I've watched before. It's an interesting movie to seek out, and I really do recommend it, but I hope you aren't expecting a masterpiece. Just watch it 'for the fun of it' (even if this phrase sounds a bit ironic).Rating: 2 and a half stars out of 4!