A review of this movie could easily evolve into a full fledged essay about school shootings in America, but we will have to consider that this is a work of art, a fictional depiction and not a documentary or, god forbid, a blueprint. The most disturbing aspect of the movie is the shallowness, carelessness and totally unempathetic way the perpetrators go about in preparing and then executing their hideous act with the support of a society in which mail order guns are a normality. Probably nobody goes unprepared into a sitting of this film since otherwise it would be difficult to understand why we would need to follow a bunch of high school kids going about their chores in a typical, if not mediocre high school setting with the cliques, weirdo's and good kids that have become the cliche's of American high school cinema. Of course that all changes when the shooting starts. For dramatic effect all kids that we had just gotten to accept for their juvenile awkwardness are popped off like rats in an abandoned house basement with a BB gun. Except it was an AR-15, which was then and since the tool of choice for instant infamy. Anger wells in this reviewer when considering the reason for inclusion of a dose of 'German weirdness' in the form of old Hitler footage and Beethoven sonata's as a hint of foreign influence to such atrocities instead of the innate sickness of American society. Nevertheless Gus van Sant could have followed the simple rule that movies that include the Moonlight Serenade are statistically more likely to attract higher review scores. Casting a final verdict on the movie should include the consideration if we learned anything, is it food for thought? When thinking about the fact the impact of the movie doesn't allow for a quick and snappy soundbite that the answer must be yes, it's highly disturbing, if this is how it is, it is terrible.

This is a fictionalization of the Columbine High School massacre that happened in 1999. The story plods along until the climax of the shootings. When I say plods, I mean plods. Eschewing any attempt at depth, much of what is shown are long takes of kids walking down hallways or across fields. I figured that there would ultimately be some payoff in the story for the tedium of the walks, but no. The tedious waking turns out to be a way to make the movie have feature length. If all of the walking were to be taken out, then what would be left would be much less than sixty minutes.Establishing any motivation for the actions of the two killers is minimal--one of the guys is seen to be a loner and is bullied in one scene. The interests of the guys are: watching Nazi films, playing violent video games, ordering a semi-automatic gun. There is an ambiguous scene that has the two guys naked in a shower kissing. Is that meant to implicate homosexuality as somehow part of the personality of some such killers?In a pivotal scene, one of the shooters confronts the school principal who pleads for his life. The kid says to him that maybe he (the principal) will take complaints more seriously in the future, but then the kid kills him. What kind of complaints was the kid referring to? Would responses to student complaints actually have made a difference? At least not what we see here, which is more of telling of what happens, but not why. Perhaps there will never be a satisfactory answer to why, but, maybe movies like this are part of the answer as to what might be a precipitating cause of some of the events depicted.There is nothing here beyond what most people could imagine. The main reason I can see for the existence of this movie is to exploit the less than admirable human trait of being unable to avoid looking at an accident.

As someone fascinated by Columbine, I've been meaning to watch this movie for a long time; having finally seen it, I must say that Elephant is a bit disappointing for me. I understand that Gus Van Sant is a well-respected director known for his subtle, pseudo-documentary style. I sat down to watch Elephant fully expecting a understated interpretation of Columbine focused on showcasing realistic high school students going about a seemingly normal day. But I found that style tended to precede substance in this film. It's as though the director was so concerned with putting out a stylistically subtle, artistically shot indie film that he neglected crucial aspects like character development, plot, action.You'd think a movie so focused on the activities and interactions of a select few high school students would do a little more in the way of establishing those students as real, multidimensional characters for the audience to empathize with. But all those mundane interactions and conversations tell us little about our focal students. We see snippets, sure: Elias loves photography, John has to act as a parent to his own father, Michelle is insecure about her body. But that's really the extent of it. We know even less about others like Acadia and Bobby, who play no role whatsoever but, for whatever reason, merit their own on-screen title cards displaying their names. Moreover, we see more of these side characters than we see of the gunmen themselves, who have virtually no character development. It's hard to engage an audience through flat characters and their inconsequential activities. If you're going to show us a five-minute shot of a student walking, at least give us a reason to care about him.Or maybe just don't insert five consecutive minutes of walking. That's another flaw here: there's no action at all, even when two students show up to school armed and ready to kill. Now don't get me wrong, I'm no adrenaline junkie. I didn't turn it on expecting a Tarantino- esque gun action sequence. But every death is off screen. The shooting sequences are filmed in such a way that you can't see any of what's going on, just a generic close-up of the killer's blank face. As Alex and Dylan go on their rampage, the reactions of the students are somewhat underwhelming and unrealistic. There's some screaming and running from select students, but none of the widespread panic you'd expect during a high school massacre. John and his father watch from outside with blank expressions as students flee the smoking building. Even more ridiculous is Bobby, the black kid introduced at the last moment and intended to be relevant, who walks calmly down a hallway of running students, watches a girl jump out a window to escape but for some reason doesn't evacuate himself, and finally walks right up to the killer, unarmed, seemingly unconcerned, virtually asking for death.Elephant isn't a bad movie, but I'd definitely say it's overrated. For a film that prides itself in "realism", it strikes me as highly unrealistic. Boring, really. Nothing happens until the last ~20 minutes, and by that point I was a bit peeved to have watched an hour's worth of walking, mundane conversations, film developing, and not much else.

It's a regular high school in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon. Elias is an artistic photographer. John seems happy except for his drunk dad. Nathan and Carrie are the hot couple. Acadia is a gay activist. Michelle is an awkward nerd. Brittany, Jordan and Nicole are chatty girls. It's a normal day until Eric and Alex show up armed for mayhem. They're outsiders struggling with bullying. They play first person shooter games, watch Hitler on TV, buy guns off the internet and are possibly gay.Gus Van Sant has obviously taken inspiration from the Columbine massacre. He has a cast of young amateur newbies to play the kids. The only recognizable face is Matt Malloy who plays the principal Mr. Luce. I like the regular kids approach. I even like the the hypnotic minimalist style. I always love approaching the same event from different points of view. It's a bit slow but it's kind of interesting. My biggest problem is the portrait of the killers. This is fictional but the killers have to feel real. This is such an important part of the movie. I rather Eric & Alex be an enigma than ending up feeling false in any way. Gus Van Sant should have left their backstory out of the movie. The movie needs to shed an insightful light on the killers or else it should leave them as mysteries. There are some docudramas based on true events that are more compelling.