..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

2:37

Directed by Murali K. Thalluri

Next was the controversial 2:37 a.k.a. Elephant Crash High, an impressive first film from 22-year-old Aussie Murali K. Thalluri, but only as impressive as his absolute lift from Gus van Sant combined with vain, failed efforts to improve on Van Sant’s Elephant ideas with the banal coincident scam of Paul Haggis’ Crash can be.

The film tells the stories of a half dozen high school kids (and a few others in their lives) on one lovely day. The film opens by establishing that someone is bleeding and not responding in a janitor’s closet. From there, it becomes a messy mystery of who is in the closet and why. There is the perfect jock with a secret, the perfect girl with a secret, the perfectly broken geek (he limps and pees against his will) with a secret, the dork/hunky brother with a secret, and the aggressively out gay guy with a secret. So, who’s in the closet? The answer is, inevitably and aggregiously as unobvious as possible.

One of Thaluri’s big missteps was adding doc-style commentary from the characters, which is neither terribly interesting nor helpful to his cast of acting neophytes, who seem very relaxed through most of their scenes and absolutely tongue-tied with bad dialogue in these little fourth-wall busting efforts.

Besides the fact that the work here feels quite warmed over, the major problem I had with the film arrived late and with a fury. One of the secrets is so significant that it not only could be a complete film itself, it is pretty much irresponsible to leave it hanging out there like some so-what plot point in this story. The event, which involves a form of rape, is so life changing in and of itself and the way Thalluri shot it is so specfic and so oddly incomplete, that it only brings up more questions that scream for a more thoughtful filmmaker to offer answers.

The film only starts hurting when it finally gets to its point, but it turned my “not bad” reaction into a real “fuck you” to the filmmaker.

A redeeming feature is the featured role debut of Teresa Palmer, who will soon be seen in Grudge 2, Doug Liman’s Jumpers, and apparently, as the object of Harry Potter’s nudity in December Boys. The girl gives strong hints that she can act and she may be People’s Most Beautiful Person Alive before too long. Stunning girl.

Also, the boy in the film, Sam Harris, shows less acting skill, but he is very, very pretty and has no small amount of charisma. He could be the next Aussie heartthrob to land in Hollywood. With a director a bit more seasoned and careful, plus a few acting lessons, this kid could be something. And so could another young actor from the film, Joel Mackenzie, who has that thing, which is helped by the fact that he plays the one absolute truth teller in this movie.

But the movie... culty... maybe a gay fest circuit film... and something I was thinking would be great for teens to see as a way of understanding the politics of being a teen... until it turned the corner into being something close to seriously offensive.

- David Poland