Audience Member
Loosely based on the Columbine High School Massacre, Heart of America is a train wreck of a film directed by Uwe Boll. Boll has had the reputation of being one of the worst directors working today, and I'll admit I did enjoy a few of his films, however this is among one of his debut films, and the execution of the film is one that is poor, and it is over the top ridiculous. Boll in recent years has been better, especially his recent efforts, Rampage and Assault on Wall Street. However with Heart of America, it's easy to see why he is a director who has polarized viewers with his work. The film takes a tragedy, and dumbs it down to low Budget, B movie trash, and every actor just overacts in their roles. The script is poorly fleshed out, the cast are poorly chosen, and the direction is sloppy. I always thought that Boll was the type of director who needs to mess it up many times before hand before he can actually make something at least worth seeing. Heart of America could have succeeded at being a great drama, but it ends failing because the script I felt was underdeveloped and the cast were boring, and tried too hard with lacking material. The result is a film that doesn't satisfy and you clearly that Boll's heart was in the right place in trying to make a good feature, but like his legacy has shown, of the nearly thirty features he has made, only four are actually worth seeing. Avoid this film and if you're looking for two great dramas that are based on school shootings, there is Gus Van Sant's Elephant, which is based on the Columbine events that is a far superior work, and Dennis Villeneuve's Polytechnique which is based on the 1989 Montreal University shooting. Both films are great and capture the tragedy in a brutal, yet subtle way. Heart of America is just a disjointed effort that tries far too hard at making a tragedy seem appealing to viewers. Avoid this film along with every other Video Game adaptation by Uwe Boll, and watch Assault on Wall Street and Rampage instead.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
02/07/23
Full Review
Audience Member
While Elephant, on one hand, focused on the time and space factors that converge unrelated people to those tragic incidents, Uwe Boll is more concerned about the characters - and this is a sympathetic and surprisingly moving drama that relies on decent performances.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/14/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Where to begin on this piece of shit. I have read that many people have been impressed with Uwe Boll's Heart of America, his first true venture into the dramatic. What ensues is a film that is so insanely over-dramatizes of the horrible events leading up to, and including a school shooting. The viewer is introduced to an ensemble of characters the morning of the school shooting. Using a ton of flashbacks, we learn about these characters and why they are who they are. The biggest problem with this film is the
absolutely terrible script that uses every stereotype in the book to create this exaggerated and quite frankly laughable sentimentality. EVERY character is a walking cliche, from the stoners to the jock to the nerd- one dimensional characters aplenty. The film tries to hard to capture every aspect of adolescnes (bullying, virginity, unplanned pregnancy, drugs, rape, bad parenting, etc) to the point of it all becoming just silly and over stuffed. I also enjoyed how the script felt the need to remind the viewer a million times that it was the last day of school. Of course, Boll opts to use black & white photography for the flashback sequences (CLICHE as fuck), while an overabundance of music is used in some poor attempt to illicit more emotion from the audience. Boll's attempt to question the moral dilemmas and complications which arise is rather weak as well-using the Bully character of Rick, who has a change of heart towards the end of the film, yet dies by the hands of the bullied. I get what he was going for, but it simply doesn't work to the degree he was hoping for, though it is a good point I suppose. I will say that from a purely technical standpoint (editing and cinematography) this has got to be Uwe Boll's best film. There are some surprisingly well done sequences, using tracking shots, long takes, etc. but it doesn't save the film by any means. Uwe Boll is a lighting rod for people to hate on, and I find it pretty funny that a majority of people who do so, think this is his best film. I much prefer Boll stick too the action/horror/comedy genre as a film like POSTAL, for example was great, ridiculous fun. When he ventures into drama.. Yikes.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
02/17/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Great film Very touching. A look at what can push one over the edge. It had that feel of United 91. I really like this movie. I bought it. A must own for me.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/24/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Uwe Boll does Columbine?! It's the events that lead to a shooting that very much resembles that of the massacre that happened at Columbine High School in 1999, sort of a re-imagining. It all takes place one fateful morning on the last day of school, telling what 8-10 students were up to the hour before shit hits the fan. Of all the subject matters for Boll to tackle, this one is the most puzzling, but then again, I still haven't seen Darfur. Right from the title menu on the DVD, you know he got the tone all wrong from the hard rock music, and really, that's what feels most wrong: the tone. It feels a lot closer to a soap opera than a serious movie about troubled children; everybody is a kid with problems, and nobody has a range to work in; they're all just angst-filled teens. There isn't anything subtle about it and you really have to question why anybody would make this movie if they weren't going to approach it as a character study.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/26/23
Full Review
Audience Member
**1/2 (out of four)
A disturbing and well meaning film about two students who decide that they are going out in a blaze of glory. They make a suicide pact with each other. On the last day of school they decide to enter the school and start shooting, taking as many students as they can with them.
Obviously inspired by the Columubine shootings, the film, unfortunately, doesn't quite rise above the fair script. It pales in comparison to the Gus Van Sant film, "Elephant."
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/09/23
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