This is a movie about some vapid white broads. That chick from some Disney flick was in it. Some people think she's hot; meh, if you like potato chips. Her boyfriend buys some sticks and stems from some lil bite sized vato with a NKOTB ponytail. Next thing you know, Disney chick is trying to earn her merit badge for humping an authentic brown person. One of her lame friends insists she wants to take on three brown wieners at the same time, therefore making her the most coolest girl in their white suburbanite high school. But as it turns out, she tapped out after two. So she runs out of the room crying because her sphincter is irritated. Next thing you know, three poor hombres are getting charged with rape. Moral of this movie? Never trust a succubus white she devil...Oh and that one dude from Training Day was in it. I liked him though. He was cool. That is all.

There's a quote in Godard's "Le Petit Soldat" that perfectly reflects something that's hidden in most of us and we don't how to express it, something that seems to upset us in a devastating way. The main character says this while looking his reflection in the mirror: "It's strange. When I look myself in the face I get the feeling I don't match with what I think it's inside". Such statement, such insatisfaction is part of some of us in one point or another in life because world is made of appearances which cause endless worries on people who need to work harder than others to reach the "required" state of society thinks is the adequate. That character suffered enough, knows what's he talking about and he knows he can change this fact. "Havoc" could be defined into that one quote but it goes more than that. Here, white girls (some boys too) from great upbringings, with money and clothes all around, lifestyle desired by many but who want to be part of more exciting things, sing rap and be part of less fortuned cliques, be with them and be like them. Why? Because we're bored, we want to feel what's being dangerous is like, we wanna escape the uselessness of our lives. But only if could use those words, then we would probably feel some sympathy for them. They say they're bored, that when they're among their peers they feel like a dream but being with drug dealers and criminals is the real thing, something to feel better but all those explanations aren't good enough, it should have more. At the end of the day, they go back home to their "miserable" lives and still gonna wake up being white girls trying to impress others with their behavior, language coming from another culture. Anne Hatahway wonderfully illustrates youth's identity crisis in a scene where she goes from being the usual image of herself, trying to sell an idea, to later be a completely smart girl with fascinating remarks about politics to later be sensual, provocative, pretending to be a porn star. She does that to impress a young colleague (Matt O'Leary) who's making a sort of documentary on this group of white-wanna-be-black. She spams of character like a remote changing channels on different shows. And with those impersonations she gives us the image of a youth with no identity, damaged by drugs, television, consumerism, lack of parental attention, thinking it knows what it wants but really doesn't know. The video was innocent, more was about to come her way when she and her friend tries to join a group of Latino gang-bangers that are for real in everything they say. And this marks the turning point on her lives when they'll see that things aren't the way they appear. Better films (like "Alpha Dog") dealt with the subject matter in a more interesting way. What "Havoc" does is presenting us actors like Hathaway, Bijou Phillips, Mike Vogel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (he nailed it, though) acting like a gang, forcing some racial stereotypes at times (specially in the beginning), very over-the-top. This helps and it doesn't. They have to play this way because people who try to be something different of what they are does that. So, it's a bad acting that makes the film good, you believe (but not completely) in what they're doing. The Hispanic gang (formed by Freddy Rodriguez, Raymond Cruz and others) has better moments, but also with some clichéd stereotypes of movies that show how tough East L.A. really is. It's the most confusing aspect of the film and the one that gets the most criticism.At the same time it focuses on the issue of appearances, social backgrounds and its differences, trying to be a movie with a powerful statement "Havoc" fails a lot with its messy presentation. Reduces thoughts and conflicts like meaningless things or not giving the needed attention; it seems more concerned in selling a material rather than exposing the idea. It touches the skin but doesn't go deep inside. Right, they rap, use slangs and feel completely connected with the black culture and their things but you don't see them dating or having relations of any kind with African-Americans. I don't recall seeing one in the whole movie. Closes with a abrupt and horrible ending that explains the reasons why they are this way but this never fulfills our questions, doesn't make us feel sorry for them, doesn't make us feel terrified with what they've been through, it makes us too judgmental. Given a proper look one could say "Hey, the movie is simply showing what not to do, try to be yourself and find something positive to do". But this is being too simplistic just like the movie and it's not quite a useful reading one can make of "Havoc", in fact there are plenty of moments when the film seems to incite this kind of behavior, it's supportive of it. I admired some of its qualities but don't find it enough bad to be a bad picture neither too good to be a good film. It's something in between. If curious about it go ahead just for the "fun" of seeing people trying to be what they're not. Most of all, don't be fooled in seeing the name of Stephen Gaghan ("Traffic", "Syriana") and thinking this movie is worthy of his writing credits. It's quite a disappointment. 6/10

Despite the fact that this movie is like the umpteenth variation of Rebel Without A Cause, anybody who has gone to a high school in an affluent area in the last decade and seen the amount of pampered young 'wiggers' there are knows that the premise of this flick is relevant to today's youth and is worth exploring. Unfortunately, the movie fails to deliver on this promising premise and only succeeds in wasting a fine performance from Anne Hathaway.The movie WANTS to make a powerful statement about spoiled, naive, pseudo-disillusioned youths searching for identity in the superficial only to receive a colossal reality check when they realize the life they've been imitating isn't as glamorous as they had thought. Unfortunately, this noble message is lost in a weak script and characters that are either one-dimensional, unbelievable or both. Although one must consider the fact that the screenplay was for the most part written by a 16-year-old girl before judging it, it is disappointing that an Academy Award-winning co-writer with some experience with this genre of film (Stephen Gaghan) could not give the screenplay and characters a more authentic feel.Even if it was the screenwriter's intention to make the script's dialogue horrible for the sake of legitimizing just how inane the gang of rich white teens are acting, the horrid screen writing comes off so cartoonish that the viewer will have an extremely difficult time accepting the dialogue, and consequently the behavior, of these characters as being legitimate. As a result, the gang of rich white wannabe thugs come off, for the most part, as being overwrought caricatures saddled with some of the most laughably horrible dialogue ever heard in a motion picture. As for the gang of cholo thugs in the movie, they come off as being far too nice and too stereotypical to Latinos, and thus seem only marginally less cartoony that the gang of rich white kids.The movie's lone saving grace is Anne Hathaway. Playing a role that shares some parallels with and could be considered a natural extension of her smart-girl-with-a-rebellious-streak Meghan Green character from the short-lived TV series Get Real, hers was the only character in the movie that had any sort of depth and believability. The script, despite its many shortcomings, succeeds in making it clear just how self-aware, intelligent, and capable of good Hathaway's character is, in spite of her actions as a member of the gang of rich white teens, giving the film its lone three-dimensional character. Because of Hathaway's talent as an actress, as well as her successful exploitation of the public's predominant perception of her as a wholesome girl next door for this film, it is easy for the audience to believe that Hathaway's character is the rebel-without-a-clue fish out of water that the script is trying to portray her as. Hathaway's acting is superb, head and shoulders above anyone else in the film, which adds to her character's legitimacy. However, the people who see this movie will likely be too busy snickering at the inane lines of dialogue she's repeatedly forced to drop or, more likely, be gaping at their TV thinking "O...M...G! The chick from The Princess Diaries is actually TOPLESS!" to notice her solid performance.Which leads to a discussion of arguably the biggest reason most people even know this film exists. Hathaway has claimed in interviews that she only does nudity in films if she deems it necessary to the story. While a case can be made that most of the nudity in the film was appropriate when considering the context of the scenes in which it was featured, I find myself questioning just how "necessary" it is, for example, to show Hathaway's character popping her top while making out with her boyfriend (or for that matter, to see Bijou Phillips' character in the film topless while taking a bubble bath). That's not to say this movie should be mistaken for a late-night film on Skinemax; it most certainly isn't. But Hathaway is topless just enough in this film to make this obvious attempt to expand her acting repertoire beyond the roles in family films she had previously been limited to seem heavy-handed and maybe even a little desperate. Anne, take it from me, you're a wonderful actress. That alone will do more to land you mature roles than taking off your top for sex scenes in a poorly-scripted indie movie ever will.When all is said and done, the amount of nudity in this movie only made it worse; when you factor the amount of it in along with in how disappointing the movie is, it only adds evidence to the argument that the only reason this movie exists was for Hathaway to prove to us just how far she was willing to go to avoid being typecast as Princess Mia Thermopolis for the rest of her acting career...which is a shame, considering her legitimately solid acting job in this movie.Rent "Kids" or "Thirteen" instead; both films are about topics similar to this movie and both are far better.

I don't think all these comments do the movie justice, I do not think it was horrible, and I think the acting was actually excellent, but overall this movie just made me uncomfortable. I think everyone who says Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anne Hathaway acted horribly, did not understand the characters at all, the reality is that their characters acted terribly, and so Gordon-Levitt and Hathaway's performances were actually amazing, in the fact that they could portray teenagers with such skewed ideas of reality. From a previous comment that I agree with: "Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character Sam is the best example of this skewed image. To some, his performance may seem over the top, but this is how Sam truly feels as though gang members act." I don't think I would recommend this movie to the casual movie-goer, but I thought the acting was actually great, because it would be difficult to act as a character who tries to act like someone ridiculous.