Assassination of a High School President

Release Date: October 6th, 2009 (DVD)

Genre: Comedy / Crime / Mystery

Stars: Bruce Willis, Mischa Barton, Reece Thompson, Michael Rappaport

Synopsis: A school newspaper reporter gets his big break when he outs the student body president for stealing the SAT tests from the principal's office but further investigation suggests a frame job and a much bigger scandal.

AltAss Ratings (On a scale of 1 to 5 asses)

Plot:                                           

A well crafted premise and certainly a strength for the film.

Writing / Production:            

At times "Assassination of a High School President" is down right entertaining and others it is completely boring and uninteresting.  The biggest criticism for this film is that it does not harness momentum efficiently and winds up a series of peaks and valleys.

Acting:                                  
          
It is a shame that Michael Rappaport was not used more often as he was absoultely hillarious.  Bruce Willis is very nice in his role as the principal but the rest of the players which include the leads left a bit to be desired.

Originality:                           

"Assassination of a High School President" feels a lot like a bad tribute to classic detective mystery movies and if it had done enough to more closely mimic that genre it would have been a pretty novel concept.

Overall:                                   

This movie put a lot of stock in a fantastic finish and while the ending was pretty good that doesn't quite make up for the fact that the audience has to labor through a painfully hit or miss feature length fare to get there. 

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Exam

Release Date: November 16th, 2010 (DVD)

Genre: Mystery / Thriller

Stars: Luke Mably, Chukwudi Iwuji, Nathalie Cox, Adar Beck, Gemma Chan

Synopsis: Eight candidates for a highly desirable position at a powerful company sit down to take an examination with very specific instructions and quickly discover their test forms are blank leaving the participants to seek the question as well as the answer.

AltAss Ratings (On a scale of 1 to 5 asses)

Plot:                                      

A solid idea that wasn't quite perfectly formulated.

Writing / Production:           

Struggles to establish a nice rythym but eventually becomes very interesting before the momentum is spoiled by a ridiculous ending. 

Acting:                                  

Mostly decent with a smattering of poor cheeseball moments that stick out badly.

Originality:                            

I think the basic premise is a very original idea but the ending plot twist meant to blow the mind's of the audience is old hat and poorly executed to boot.

Overall:                                 

"Exam" was a film that had a lot going for it but ended up feeling awkward like something was just a little off throughout the entire movie.  In the end the explanation for the tense scenario is completely absurd which does not help the overall impact of the movie.

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

tRelease Date: March 19th, 2010 (USA)

Genre: Crime / Mystery / Drama

Stars: Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Ewa Froling

Synopsis: A journalist recently convicted of libel takes a leave of absence from his magazine and takes a job as a private investigator for a wealthy family looking into a 40 year old missing persons case where he teams up with an unlikely partner in a young female computer hacker.

AltAss Ratings (On a scale of 1 to 5 asses)

Plot:                                

Its a good and entertaining mystery with plenty of nice twists and suspenseful moments but there seemed to be just a little bit too much going on.

Writing:                          

Started kind of slow but when it finally drew me in I ceased to notice I was reading subtitles.

Acting:                                

Very nice performances by both leads, especially Rapace who had some very tough scenes.  Sweden has some talented actors and I'd definitely take the chance to see another Swedish film if it comes along.

Originality:                     

Definitely uses many standbys of this genre but the vast differences between the male and female leads and the graphic and explicit nature of some the scenes (largely because it is European) set this film apart.

Overall:                         

This is a very nice who done it that suffers from being about 30 or 40 minutes too long.  There are also some very disturbing depictions of sexual violence that may be too much for some audiences.  If you can stomach these scenes and subtitles if you don't speak Swedish, "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo" is worth a look.

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The Oxford Murders

Release Date: July 2nd, 2010

Genre: Crime / Thriller/ Mystery

Stars: Elijah Wood, John Hurt, Leonor Watling, Julie Cox

Synopsis: An American student arrives at Oxford University in hopes of being mentored by a professor he admires when a string of murders draw the two together in an attempt to decode the logic behind the series of symbols the killer leaves as clues.

AltAss Ratings (On a scale of 1 to 5 asses)

Plot:                                                           

The overall premise is decent enough but the smaller details are noticably lacking.

Writing:                        

May go over the head of a lot of people in the audience who love a good mystery but didn't realize it was a prerequisite to brush up on their mathematics and philosophy before viewing the film.

Acting:                           

Elijah Wood was not very believable in his role as an intellectual and looked like he should be heading to soccer practice instead of a lecture hall.  The rest of the cast did a good job, especially John Hurt in his role as the professor.

Originality:                

A very classic who done it with little or no deviation from other efforts of that genre.

Overall:                       

This film was looking solid enough for the first 40 minutes or so but endings typically make or break this type of movie and "The Oxford Murders" did not stick the landing.  Even if you can decipher the academic jargon, there are a lot of things in this movie that just don't add up.