Welcome to the second edition of Uwe Boll week. This time we will be focusing on the extremely underrated, very hard to find second film by Uwe Boll: Heart of America. Inspired by the events at Columbine, Uwe decides to examine the lives of the victims and the killers in a split story that all intertwines at the end.
First you have the teachers. The teachers are dealing with a lot of problems right now. They have a drug dealer who is ruining the lives of some of the students and an English teacher who has outright lost his mind. The principal is sent in to discipline him while a counselor goes to the drug dealer to try to get him to stop selling to her students. Secondly you have the students. The daughter of the principal is experiencing issues with her boyfriend, another is itching for her drug fix, another is a bully reflecting on all the bad things he's done and the consequences they have and another is a pregnant couple who are trying to figure out the future. Finally there are the killers. Both boys have been abused and treated badly by the teachers and students and have had enough. Daniel is crazed and hungry for blood while Barry is having second thoughts. The film comes together nicely with a great message about violence.
This is a great character study. You learn the inner workings of all the characters and learn to love or at least care about all of them. So when the climax finally happens, you are emotionally drawn into the film. That is powerful work and I must compliment Boll and Klein (from Blackwoods) who worked to make this film as best as possible. It also helps the acting is great a well. All of the actors (including a young Brendan Fletcher from Rampage) do really well and are believable in their parts.
There are some hinky editing bits and once again this film suffers from a low budget. It also relies heavily on text, some of which is awkward in places. It also ends kind of abruptly, leaving me wanting a little more. But otherwise this is a really good character study and in my opinion, another solid showing from Uwe Boll...too bad his next film was crap...
Either way a very underrated film. Very hard to find though (as you can tell by my lack of pictures)
MY VERDICT: SEE IT
Wow... this actually sounds really good. I need to try and find a copy of this...
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