Review of The Chumscrubber (2005) by Chris W — 27 Nov 2011

Took me quite a while to decide the rating, but eventually I came up with the idea to scribble off of 'Alpha Dog' due to its similarity. Basically it has the same plot, but less violence, less profanity, a bigger indie vibe and a happier ending. It contains a lot more symbolism (the Chumscrubber e.g) and psychological twists which makes it get the extra half-star.

The plot is unspectacular, to say the least. I'm not an expert on movies about suburban style of life, but I think it gets pretty close to what reality is for those kids, although some characters were just really exaggerated (take Billy for example). The movie drags a bit, but towards the end there some real moments of suspension. There are two scenes in particular that made me cringe (no spoilers...).

The directing is interesting, but the editing could have been softer. Some shots were well picked, portraying the distance and loneliness of the characters, despite being among family and 'friends'.

How they came up with such a big name cast with a 7million dollar budget remains a mystery to me. Not only that, why those stars signed the contract in the first place seems far fetched, since they're all just wasted talents. They were given complex character and too less time to explore them, which ended in superficial embodiments. But there were some prominent performances as well. Thomas Curtis for instance had about 3 surprising minutes of talent explosion at the end. And the most striking scene was the conversation between Glenn Close and Jamie Bell. Superb acting, tear jerking, really. Justin Chatwin tends to overreact quite a lot, Ben Foster did a better job in Alpha Dog, where he played a more classy villain. Camille Bell was okay, but a weak link amidst all the senior actors. All in all, the characters were all creepy in a way, but who doesn't have flaws? Although most of them aren't relatable, the personalities were interesting in one way or another. Could be rambling about the characters that impressed me the most, but I'll just cut it short and end it here.

Suburban movies are definitely not really my thing, came off as an average movie for me, whose strong point was really in the cast and the characters, not the plot itself.