The Bottom Line:

With a complete lack of characterization, unbelievably pretentious direction (Van Zant uses so many long takes that I found myself looking forward to cuts) and some of the slowest pacing imaginable (in an 81 minute movie no less), Elephant is one of the most overrated movies I can name.

Elephant: A Film By Gus Van Sant

Elephant is an adequate sit down and watch movie, however some people will become bored with it, there are many many scenes of people just walking, all have significance but that might drain some people after a while, there really isn't much talking in this movie. There's also some background political agenda crap going on here, take for example the kids order guns online and a movie equivalent to Fedex just delivers them to these two kids. Which if you know anything about firearm transfers, you'd know that no one can directly receive a firearm through a courier service (including the mail) unless they are licensed dealers and have loads of proof and trust me, those kids would not be able to trick a licensed dealer into thinking they themselves are dealers to get those guns delivered to them. They also received ammo with the guns they received, which is further political BS because ammo cannot legally be shipped with firearms. I suppose if you want to overlook politics you could claim poetic license, like the scene in which one of the boys opens up a box he just received with a Bushmaster Carbon 15 rifle and just test fires it in his garage as if the police wouldn't arrive swiftly to his home or something firing off a rifle in his garage. I don't get the focus on the blond kid on the front of the DVD cover either, the movie followed him and the trouble with his either drunk or burned out (I couldn't tell which) father but it wasn't really significant, the two kids that did the actual shooting when going into the building told him to 'get out of here' similar to Eric Harris telling Brooks Brown to 'get out of here' before the Columbine school shooting, but the blond kid wasn't a friend of the shooters in this film so it didn't really do anything other than serve as a similarity to the Columbine school shooting. But overall the movie is ok, certainly not great. I think the movie Zero Day is a little bit better, you get to know the characters better in Zero Day and it's a bit easier to watch. The fact also that they made the two shooters gay was a little strange and irrelevant to the plot as well and really had no need in the film other than to kill two minutes.

couldn't watch it on my DVD player but it was OK at work so it made things difficult for me.
Hope it won't happen again...
CB

Utterly uncompromising, I gave "Elephant" five stars for Gus Van Gus Van Sant's simple, straightforward & realistic approach to a Columbine-like shooting (so be forewarned) and his refusal to comfort the viewer with easy moralizing, in an effort (I think) to let viewers react, think and come to their own conclusions. Sant also earns extra points for setting the stage with restraint and for steadfastly refusing to sensationalize his material, even after the violence has started. The result is one of the most effective of the generally provocative, often exploitive depictions of 'self-destructive youth' I've seen as of late (a virtual genre today, recent examples including Argento's "The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things," Greg Araki's "Mysterious Skin," and Larry Clark's "Bully,") - all the more so for his understatement.

It's no surprise that the reviews on Amazon.com are bimodal - many reviewers think this is a great film, others hate it. The professionals summarised on Rotten Tomatoes are similarly divided. You'll notice that I said "think it's a great film", not "loved the film". There is a difference. It's hard to "love" a film that moves this slowly and has such a grim subject matter. For about an hour, Gus van Sant simply follows students through empty hallways and filled cafeterias. The chronology is somewhat confusing, as he give no clues when switching between people about the progression of the day - is the football practice in the morning? Lunch? What about the photographer - when is he developing the film? To say that the film is maddening at the beginning is an understatement. The viewer will have to be patient and watch, just as van Sant's camera watches, to see what the filmaker had in mind.

Then comes the shootings. They are brutal and pathetic. Again, it must be a deliberate choice by van Sant that the first victim is an even bigger "loser" (on the high school social scale) than the shooters. This is what makes the shooters pathetic - they are not out for revenge, they have no statement to make, i.e. they are so pathetic they can't even formulate a reason why they are killing people. Are real high school shooters like this? Is there any way to rationalise such actions (for us or for the shooters themselves)? Van Sant seems to suggest that there is not.

The film is skillfully made - the takes are long (several minutes without cuts). The actors are believeable (even if the school is not - where are all the students of this school? It looks like it's only 1/4 filled to capacity). The method of presentation is thought-provoking. The film will not sit well with people that are looking for answers (or even questions). Sometimes there simply are no answers, and van Sant does not cheapen his film by trying to provide them. It's a brave presentation, but I think the right one for this subject matter.