Twelve: DVD: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
Review by JAM
A drug dealer with a conscience, a party girl lost in a sea of drugged out desire, a nice girl who gets caught in a sea of lies, a girl searching for the ultimate version of fame… These characters and more collide in Twelve, a Joel Schumacher directed drama centered around the lives of upper crust teenagers trying to make sense of life.
White Mike (Chace Crawford) plays a lost soul of a drug dealer who justifies his way of life by not partaking in the marijuana he sells. A former high society member himself, his fall from grace came through his mother’s illness which destroyed the family fortune as well as destroying White Mike’s sense of morality and hope for a better life. Intertwined in his life are the lives of his friends and customers including Sara Ludlow (Esti Ginzburg) the party girl fame-seeker, Chris Kenton (Rory Culkin) the manipulated rich kid with the psychopath brother, and Lionel (Curtis Jackson) the supplier for White Mike who betrays and manipulates him as well. All the betrayals, manipulations, and back-stabbings all culminate at Sara’s birthday party, a party that in her mind will never be forgotten.
JAMS Ink on Twelve
I am not exactly a big fan of the teen-angst, drug filled drama, road to redemption movies normally. This one had its good points, it had its bad points, and it had its in-between. White Mike has got to be the worst character name ever, as it just seems to drip with racism or thoughtlessness. I mean the connotations could range from the fact his name was Mike and he was white, to the white knight mentality he seems to have of himself, or to a drug reference. Whatever it is, it is a weird character name and I found it bothering me some as the movie went on.
I also don’t know if I really appreciated Kiefer Sutherland’s voiceover work as the narrator. It seemed distracting that so much of the movie seemed to be told to the viewer rather than shown on screen. Large chunks of the storyline seemed almost read like from a book, which makes a visual medium on the movie screen seem to not be operating at its greatest efficiency if verbal instructions and cues need to be shared.
Emma Roberts plays a character with far too little screen time, as she plays the innocent that gets pulled into the middle of this convoluted mess. It seems like she offers a road to redemption to White Mike that is never taken until the preachy ending where she closes the door to their odd relationship while leaving possibilities ahead but then the movie ends.
Emily Meade as Jessica Brayson is an interesting character that faces a fall of epic proportions. Her character seems to have it all, but loses everything including herself just for her next high from the designer drug Twelve. It is scary to see a girl with everything going for her getting so addicted to the escape from life that she throws away everything she could have and does have just for another chance to feel whatever it was she felt. It seems to be the truest insight into the drugged up world of this movie in some ways.
Twelve from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment lands on store shelves on December 28, 2010.
TWELVE DVD:
Street Date: December 28, 2010
Screen Format: Widescreen
Audio: English
Subtitles: English, Spanish
U.S. Rating: R
Total Run Time: 104 minutes
Closed Captioned: Yes
Remember check out this review and more from JAM at www.hollywoodteenzine.com for teens and tweens, and at http://jammoviereviews.blogspot.com for movies of all genres and ages.
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