Cry_Wolf (2005)

- written February 2006



   

Summary: Owen is a transfer student from England into a upscale prepatory high school. From the moment he arrives though, his life is anything but ordinary. He decides to join his roommate, Tom, and his new crush, Dodger, in a game of lies and deceit. The game is over fast as Owen outsmarts them all. But to up the ante, they choose to make the game a little harder…now no one will know what’s real and isn’t. And Owen won’t know who to trust.           Overall: This movie definitely had my attention early on and really was doing a good job. Not just the game at the beginning but also the e-mail they send out. They did a good job of addressing possibilities, etc. However the film starts to falter when you realize although the game was designed for the whole school, only our 8 protagonists are playing. And the fact that everyone starts to over-exaggerate their own actions as a result of this got a bit unrealistic for me. And what I meant by this is the following. Owen gets an IM (instant message) from someone pretending to be the fictional serial killer that they created. Instead of playing through it or ignoring it, he decides to confront everyone in their group about it, and fairly immediately too. Now I’ll give you when this killer starts running around with knives trying to stab people...not overacting. But the film built it self upon such sketchy decision-making that it got sorta silly towards the end.           I did enjoy Lindy Booth (as Dodger) in the red Halloween dress…but overall the cast was fairly unspectacular. Jared Padalecki normally plays very smart, tough guys and this film has him running around like a scared chicken. Which I wasn’t buying.           As for the ending, I’ll try not and give too much away…but basically when we, the viewers, find out the truth…it’s almost giving up too fast…not enough suspense for us to figure out. It’s really, really quick. Better example of this…Watch “Glengary Glen Ross” when Kevin Spacey figure out what “The Machine” did. This film ha a similar scene of “accidental confession” but it’s like the first words out. No suspense or build up. That was sad.           As for the deleted scenes, I think they should have left them all in. Only 3 of them but they combine for 13 minutes in length. The director had a good point about the first one…Owen in woods walking home after being winner of lying game, meets with a person in the woods. Next immediate scene is the hand of the dead girl being found. They’re right in that scene, when place gives us the idea the one character is responsible…but at same time…I don’t think the director was inventive enough to work around this. He’s right in that the film isn’t scary early on and this solved that problem.           Comparison: The Skulls meets Gossip

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