Alex is skateboarding kid in Portland. His parents are separated and getting divorced. His girlfriend is Jennifer (Taylor Momsen). He and his friend Jared start hanging out at Paranoid Park, a skate park set up by street kids. There is a death at the rail tracks. A security guard is possibly murdered and a skateboard is found. Detective Richard Lu is at the school interviewing the kids.Gus Van Sant delivers another quiet film of youth disenfranchisement. The actors are almost entirely unknown amateurs. The story is fairly basic. The central mystery is pretty straight forward. The dialog is casual. Visually, it looks beautiful. There are long uncut scenes with music. My problem with some of those scenes is the music. It is often old soft music. It takes away from the intensity and it doesn't fit the kids in the movie. Maybe Gus is trying to make a fanciful fable with the music. I don't think the music selection works.

A lot of people defending this movie have some valid points, and I think this movie was a decent attempt at what it's trying to do. In my opinion it just doesn't work. This movie is basically a yawn fest, and the plot is THIN. I get it, he's trying to let us inside the mind of a teenage boy trying to deal with no only a difficult family life, but also an unfortunate and traumatic event. Skateboarding seems to be used as his escape. It has the makings of the dramatic film it's trying to be, but there is just too many jumbled and mixed up scenes that offer the viewer nothing. It gets excruciatingly difficult to watch scene after scene of the camera just staring into the blank and expressionless face of the main character. I don't know, accuse me of being one of those people that need "Michael Bay explosions" to be entertained....whatever. I have no problem with movies that aren't action packed or straight forward, but this movie is too much.

This film was only half a movie so I gave it half the stars. I feel I'm being really generous as I believe it's only worth 4 stars but i wanted to say that awesome line :) In reality i can't really review this film bc i genuinely felt like the movie was incomplete. the main actor was good in that he assumed the nonchalant passiveness of a teenager but he didn't emote enough for me. I didn't feel or believe his pain at all. In short the story was good but the whole plot felt underdeveloped. The characters aren't such that you can grow a connection with them or sympathize for them in any way. The whole thing was rush and I wish the audience was given some more context both before and after the climax.

If it's an art and essay film, there is not enough art, not to mention essay.If it is a thriller, there is not enough thriller.If it is a teenage drama, there is not enough drama, and as far as teenagers are concerned, there is not enough NOFX and too much Nino Rota.I thought it could be a trailer for Tony Hawk's forthcoming movie, but there is no Tony Hawk, so I guess I'be been cheated: it's not Tony Hawk biopic.If it's an action movie, it lacks explosions, which would have added some interest to it, or at least would have make jump the sleeping ones into their chairs.Most of the characters seem to be dead inside, but it's not a zombie movie. In fact, if it is a movie, there is not enough plot. If it is not a movie, it lasts too long to be a music video.If it's a music video, well... it's an album I will not purchase