Bomb City

source: Bomb City

Movies based on true events can go very bad. This is one of the better examples. I am not that aware of all the things that happened in real life. But the movie itself is really gripping. And while I am not in the scene the main group is a part of, you can relate to their struggle. Not to all their methods mind you, or their taste, but feel them as human beings ... we are all in this together. At least that is what one should think, right? Well unfortunately there are people who are immediately intimated, scared and angry towards people that are different then themselves. This is gripping and also heart breaking and should stir you up quite a bit. Those feelings are normal, if you identify or rather empathize to a degree. Really well made and gripping from start to finish

It's 1997 in Christian conservative Amarillo, Texas. Football is king. Brian Deneke is a young punk rocker struggling to make his punk club work. His circle of friends are often harassed by the police. Violence escalates between them and the local high school football players as the two sides meet in a deadly clash. First, I love the twist in the trial. I almost gave up on that part of the movie until it delivers that big surprise. I would like to have Brian's name spoken out loud more. It's a normal movie proposition to accentuate the protagonist. It's also skewed too much on the punks' side of the story. It's expected but it would be more realistic to show some of their indiscretions. It's also missing a police raid on the club which should be expected in this type of movie. Overall, this is compelling true story and the surprise reveal really got me.

Some movies that tell real stories have a journalistic vocation. They try to shed light on a story that according to certain criteria, must be told. If they narrate what happened with the clarity due, in an honest way and without artifice, the dramatic purpose occurs in a satisfactory manner. Sometimes they are movies that stimulate debate. In other cases they are movies with a clear purpose: that we issue a judgement. This is one of those movies. Cinematographically speaking, Bomb City is a steamroller. It is solid, punchy and develops in a powerful rhythm. Its music and aesthetics match. It is clear and effective. In general it is a balanced film. It has enough elements to be considered a classic youngsters movie. The cast appropriately embodies the superficial, naive and well-meaning features of the main characters. Naive heroes who fight against hatred and stupidity. Boys with perhaps wrong intentions but who manage to soften you up and prepare you for rage and impotence to take over you. The very structure of the script presages injustice. In Bomb City tragedy is served. The hero will find his redemption through our catharsis. The injustices that end with a human sacrifice and classic tragedies have an undeniable formal affinity. But, is our perplexity at such flagrant injustice a kind of catharsis?

This was a very intense and dramatic movie that just ripped my heart out and made me think how cruel one human can actually be. Do we think satisfaction comes from an intense desire to remove what's different? Wow! I don't usually sit and ponder a movie based on a true story, but this one hit me hard and made me do so. I look at the cover of this movie and see a young man who is hardly old enough to begin his life of independence. I hope we wake up and see that inside all of us is a hero, hidden from plain sight and that we are just reflections of our true selves and natures attracting our evolution unfold. Everyone should see this movie once, for sure! It is time we all freed the hero within us and not allow circumstances to keep us stuck in situations that are unpleasant.

This was an astonishing little film. Powerful, deep, profound, gritty, resonant, and sad. Sad because it is a reflection of a broken nation. Sad because it is a reflection of a completely broken criminal justice system. Sad, because it is such an accurate reflection of how tilted our society is, and how much it favors the flavor vanilla. This film also portrays the police as savage, ruthless, heartless, violent, vacuous men, hellbent on teaching the outsiders a lesson. Not far from reality. There is a reason why such a high percent of Blacks, Latinos, and outsiders have so little regard for law enforcement. The film focuses on the preppies vs. the punks. The preppies are shown as empty headed, fairly dumb, hateful, nasty, and possessing barely a redeeming bone in their bodies. The preppies are shown as somewhat sympathetic characters. Decent relationships with their families. Definitely not as dumb as the preppies. A bit aimless, angry at society, and also hateful. But, for good reason. They have been rejected by their community, their schools, their teachers, their policemen, and the rather jaundiced, crooked, silly criminal justice system, that favors vanilla over chocolate, boring over radical, conventional over outside of the box. Every bit of Bomb City is aware of its current resonance, how the ramifications of mistrust and shallow judgments led to a tragedy that no one seemed to learn from. Its point is made through spending time with the abrasive but good-hearted Deneke, and when the audience is allowed to extrapolate the meaning of these small moments themselves the film achieves the profundity it's aiming for. It is obvious that the filmmakers sympathies lie with the victims. But, it is hard to argue with that sympathy. The murderer is a hollow shell. A man without purpose, conviction, humanity, sympathy, sorrow, or purpose. A man who deserved to spend decades in prison, but walked free as a bird, due to his color, his class, his status as an athlete, and a system that rewards that over any sense of decency or morality. As I said before, this film is a testament to how very broken America is. There is no making America great again. That is just not going to happen.

Bomb City considers the case of a true-life manslaughter in Amarillo from the perspective of the victim and his friends. Identifying the problems between those who have chosen to conform to society's values and those who have chosen to reject them in the search for something new. It's a difficult task to achieve and writers Jameson Brooks (director) and Sheldon Chick almost manage to pull it off. Whilst the interplay between Brian (Dave Davis) and his friends slowly reveals a person who still has strong family connections and a true heart, when it comes to his passion. It also cuts to a future court case and counters this with the attorney, Cameron Wilson, fighting against his actions in court. A masterfully powerful performance by Glenn Morshower. This interplay key to the developing narrative which discusses who was right and who was wrong. As tensions rise between the punks and the jocks in the town of Amarillo you can only see the story going in one direction, and the writers ensure you know that by starting near the end, intercutting to the court and then exploring the reasons. Seeing the police act differently to the two groups and casting the punks in the more fundamentally artistic role, while the jocks are seen as the drunken louts. A side that the film fails to explore to satisfaction, especially the Dynamite Museum - which seems to be a far more intrinsic plot point at the end than it is given credit for. Perhaps if the background of the jocks had been more fully explored there could have been some factors which would be of interest. As an alternative myself, I often found myself when younger being stopped by the police for merely walking down the street. But on leaving the theatre I still felt the film didn't address the differences to my satisfaction. Although it did lead me to research the real-life event, which perhaps was the point. All that being said, the way the film feels and the sense of growing oppression are well handled. Acting is sensitive and tormented when it needs to be and camera work reflects the style of the story, which are all positives. Telling the tale from a perspective that certainly wasn't covered in the press.

Based on a true story and shot using excellent cinematography but super, super, super lacking on story or script.. probably both.

The two "gangs" in this movie were the Punks and Preps. If you go back to West Side Story, it would be the Jets and Sharks. Unlike most people, I won't tell you the Punks were more noble by virtue of being outsiders. Honestly, the Punks were annoying jerks and the Preps were arrogant jerks. Both sides had good and bad people, but one side went too far. It could easily have been the other side. There is still a strong message about accepting diversity. Nothing captured the emotion of the story better than watching the parents during the trial and aftermath. Great story with great intensity.

I cried almost as hard as I did at the end of SLC Punk. I'm a Texan, born & raised, and the events depicted here sicken me & make me ashamed to be a resident in a state with such a condemnable justice system. The awful truth is that, in the south, justice is not served for people who are considered "alternative" or outside the norm. People may not consider it "discrimination" to single out those who prefer a certain genre of music, who wear black clothing, or who have piercings & tattoos. But those things neither necessitate a criminal lifestyle, nor can they be used to assume criminal intent. Yet we find the same thing tends to happen over & over when you mix youths of strong, unpopular beliefs or a "weird" disposition with the small-town mob-mentality. The West Arkamsas 3 were wrongly tried & convicted, and spent nearly 20 years in prison based on coerced confessions from a mentally handicapped youth, despite a complete lack of evidence &, in fact, despite alibis & evidence exonerating them. Even after their eventual release, they were made to plead guilty & give up their right to ever contest their wrongful conviction. Those who dole out justice are exempt, it seems, from facing it themselves. And for this reason, I find myself fearful of my state's system of justice as a unique individual, and tearful of the injustices & "singling out" that not only I have faced firsthand, but that everyone even remotely different like me has come to experience.