Reviews

Believe me is about 4 frat brothers who start a fake charity so that they can make money to wipe off a college loan. If this film was supposed to be a commentary on the current state of US higher education they might have had something. Sadly the main characters are just like the self-entitled privileged jocks that are usually painted as the bad guys in 80s films where the nerds finally have their day, so straight off the bat you hate them. The whole thing kind of sounds like a light-hearted college film, right? Wrong. Before I watched it I figured it would contain all of the classic frat characters and hijinx we have come to love from college films like Animal House, and the preview made it look funny. Wrong again. Sadly the film doesn't know whether it should be funny or serious. It pivots between poorly timed jokes that don't hit their mark and moments where we are supposed to see the human side of these asshole characters -and neither works. If it had stuck to being a shameless comedy (and they cast actors with a concept of comedic timing) then this film might have worked. Instead they tried to give it a serious edge and the lack of commitment doesn't pay off. The premise is flawed to begin with and it doesn't help that the script doesn't do anything to set up how and why the audience should believe these characters have the capability to accomplish what they are doing. The thing stinks of lazy writing, amateur directing and below average acting. Don't waste your time.

Why? That is a question many philosophers enjoy asking. And "why was this movie made?" is the question I am asking. The producers who wasted their money on this film were as short-sighted as the people who waste their money studying philosophy at university. Good luck getting a return out of that investment. You'll have plenty of time to ponder the greater questions in life while you're waiting in line to collect your unemployment check.

So, what we have here is a class of philosophy students sitting around playing an adult equivalent of make-believe that is so trite and pretentious that it will make you question your own existence -or at least your willingness to continue with it. You can read the blurb to get a better idea of the film's premise, but let's just say that it drags on longer than a two hour lecture on metaphysics. Particularly since the film runs over the same doomsday scenario three times.

They are the most unrealistically attractive class of philosophy students in the world. That was the filmmaker's first mistake. There's not one mature-aged student who won't shut up, instead it is a bunch of twenty-somethings who are as smart as they beautiful all verbally masturbating. The writing drips with smug, I'm-cleverer-than-you dialogue in which obvious questions are raised simply as a sounding board so that they can be shot down.

If I am to take a utilitarian approach to rating this film, I would say that it is justifiable to sacrifice 1 star so that the 9 other stars can be saved for a film worth watching.

1/10

Whoever made this movie should have their hands fed into one of those old-school film projectors. I can guarantee that whatever mess it projects onto the silver screen would be less painful to watch than this abomination. Like I said in my summary, it's basically a remake of Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion -but without the jokes. Essentially, you have a road movie about two woman who haven't realized their best days are behind them, and are now on their way to reclaim their glory days and give "what for" to those who overlooked them when they were younger. It's kind of like a crappy Thelma & Louise. It's a pity it isn't more like it actually. At least in that film the characters die at the end -thereby sparing us any chance of a sequel. Sure they attempt jokes, but they aren't funny. It's almost like the writers were so stoned they convinced themselves they were writing jokes.

2/10

This film is an abomination to cinema and I'm now dumber for watching it. Firstly it has no coherent plot, script, or character development. It's as if the entire film was improvised and shot on someone's phone. The scarce, rambling dialogue is nothing but clunky exposition that barely manages to drag the story forward, while doing nothing to build the loathsome one dimensional characters. Poor James Franco is the only redeemable feature about this film, and does his best with what little script he's given. But the filmmakers lame excuse for social commentary on contemporary American youth falls short of the artistic merit they were reaching for. It's basically a vehicle for ex Disney girls attempting to transition their careers to an adult demographic by exploiting every trick in the book -pointless glorification of drugs, violence, and nudity. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I can't in good conscience recommend this film to anyone. If it was offered as in-flight entertainment, I would kick out the window in the hope that I would be sucked out of the plane and spared the agony of sitting through it again.