Director: Nima Nourizadeh
Year Released: 2012
Rating: 1.5
Three 17-year-olds (Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper and Jonathan Daniel Brown) plan a massive party when one of the kids' parents leave town, which starts as a large-scale bash and turns into a devastating riot that 'concludes' when a pissed-off drug dealer torches the block with a flame thrower and the S.W.A.T. team comes in (old mantra from my university: "It ain't a party 'til the cops show up"). While fun and frivolity have their place, this almost seems to be a defense of the YOLO ("you only live once") mentality (popularized by Drake in the song "The Motto"), praising hedonism and not worrying about future consequences: sure the kids end up in legal trouble, but the movie suggests they'll be "just fine" and it's a "memorable learning experience." The verite approach is effective (web 'celebrity' Dax Flame is the one assigned to "document" the extravaganza) and it's like Girls Gone Wild-gone-beyond-batshit, but once again women are turned into sexual objects (and sexual objects only) and violence and experimenting with risky drugs (ecstasy) are basically shown as being acceptable. Anyone under 23 will probably enjoy it - most people over that age will probably be revolted.
