The Rage in Placid Lake (2003)

I won't go over what I expected and what I got. What I got was very colorful and engaging.Harassed eccentric kid (with friend who is a girl) repeatedly gets beat-up by bullies coupled with his no-help hippie parents. Thus, after being thrown off a building and breaking all his bones, he heals and decides to walk the straight and narrow. Despite his better self he succeeds and reaffirms his original self in the process.Just see it if you come across it. I can't dissecet too many bad things out of it. Very good film making and storytelling. But for those who saw it the level of violence really didn't match the tone of the movie.

Aussie singer-songwriter Ben Lee makes an auspicious acting debut in Tony McNamara's "The Rage in Placid Lake", a satirical comedy-drama that could easily be construed as Australia's answer to "Ferris Bueller's Day-Off", or "Say Anything". Placid(Lee) has a benevolent anti-authoritarian streak that's akin to Bueller's, and his partner-in-crime, Gemma(Rose Byrne), is beautiful and brainy like Diana Court in the Cameron Crowe-directed classic(incidentally, Lee is engaged to Ione Skye), who hides her obvious feminine wiles behind a pair of unflattering black, horn-rimmed glasses.In the opening scene, "The Rage in Placid Lake" establishes the pair as outsiders, people who won't join the party; quite literally, since both Placid and Gemma would rather watch television in an adjoining room than drink and be merry like the other high school graduate revelers. Their friendship is put to the test when Placid undergoes a metamorphosis while immobilized in a full-body cast. His newfound conformity with social norms(get a job) compels Gemma to make a life-affirming decision(have sex) as a way of keeping pace with her best, and perhaps, only friend. By the film's end, the pair of fringe-dwellers are happily headed towards a different sort of symbiotic relationship."The Rage in Placid Lake" has a lot to say about being raised by hippies. It sucks. Unlike Tim Hunter's "River's Edge", in which a sour former-flower child asks her son(Keanu Reeves) if he stole her weed, Placid's parents are lovable potheads; just a pair of eccentric free-spirits who'd encourage their only child to wear a dress to school. This grave parental miscalculation of judgment undoubtedly is the genesis of Placid's rage. Nobody cries in "The Rage in Placid Lake"; it's not that kind of movie, instead the filmmaker utilizes quirkiness instead of overripe melodrama. Placid is a very unhappy, young man. In an earlier scene, rather than shoot a gun, he shoots film, as a weapon against his parents Doug(Garry MacDonald) and Sylvia(Miranda Richardson), and the students and faculty at his prep school."The Rage in Placid Lake" should have received a wider release in the States because this Australian import is a deceptively slack, but effective(albeit roundabout)satire about school shootings and their alienated trigger-men. It has none of the sanctimony that plagued the well-meaning, but ultimately didactic domestic indie "American Gun". "The Rage in Placid Lake gives its audience room to breathe; the movie's oblique treatment of this international epidemic never overstates itself with pontificating speeches, or authorial gestures. This somewhat meandering, low-wattage dramedy is a "what if?" movie. What if the shooter survived and turned his life around?

With all due respects, I have seen funny, and this isn't it. EVERY movie made about teens coming of age has the theme that you have to find your own identity in this harsh cruel world. "The Rage in Placid Lake" seems to think it's discovered something brand new in making this startling discovery. Here's the spoiler I promised you. Placid Lake discovers he should just be himself and then he gets the nerdy girl in the end. There, I've just saved ninety minutes of your life, which can now be spent watching one of the much better movies that this one pays homage to. (start with "The Graduate", then "Rebel Without A Cause", "Ghostworld", "The Bank") This got a lot of good reviews when it was released, and lots of good reviews on this site, and picked up a plethora of nominations for the AFI awards, so it's obviously strikes a chord with a lot of people. But for those who want to a movie with real characters, a sub text buried beneath the surface (hence the name sub text) rather than pasted irritatingly over the top, any connection to the real world and decent jokes, don't bother. Rent "Ned" or "You Can't Stop The Murders". They're both funny and unpretentious and didn't muster an AFI nomination between them.

I found this movie to be pretty good. While the jokes weren't hilariously funny, they were still worth a fair few laughs.The acting was quite good, surprisingly including the singer Ben Lee;The cinematography worked quite well with the general mood. Some of the camera work was imperfect, but that sort of added to the character of the film. Some of the shots were actually quite goodSo it didn't do so well in the box office. It wasn't the sort of film you associate with box office takings. This is a film that makes you laugh and then makes you think. I really like that, and I love how much I felt for the characters at the end. For me, that character empathy is what makes a movie good, not how many dollars it madeOverall, an interesting film that throws an interesting twist on the teen movie and the Australian comedy