So I checked out the new teen-violence-or-something film Assassination Nation. This, assuming anyone sees it, will surely be one heck of divisive film. It’s about girls standing up for themselves against slutshaming… by wielding automatic weapons (and katanas). It’s a heavily armed MeToo movie. It’s going to annoy parents but make teens cheer… it’ll also remind old fogies like me that I’ve seen this before and am not shocked by its attempt to freak out the squares.
Assassination Nation is about four teen female friends who are social media addicts and don’t see a problem when the local mayor’s phone is hacked and his cross-dressing proclivities are exposed to the town. They aren’t impressed when the principal’s phone is hacked and he has naked pictures of his toddler on it… so clearly he’s a pedo. But things go from “whatever” to worse when the hacker nails half the town and ALL the dirty secrets are released.
Some of the girls are shamed, other girls are angry. Baseball bats are used in vengeance. The boys aren’t shamed but are angry at the girls and slurs are tossed around the locker room. Adults with pics of teen girls lose their families and, of course, it’s someone else’s fault. Got to figure out who and shame and blame them. Did I mention the town is named Salem?
I guess that’s one huge problem with the movie. It’s a message film and its not afraid to preach that message right to the camera. It’s as subtle as a sledgehammer. And sometimes that blunt force film-making works. And sometimes its tin-eared. But it occurs to me, not for the first time, that I’ve seen all this before but the teens and millennials its targeting may not have. Maybe they are enthused and enraptured by this angry howl at society. Maybe they don’t need adult film-makers telling them what to do….
The film basically is a hodge-podge of Heathers, turned up to eleven, where maybe the high school winds up dynamited. It’s Mean Girls if the burn book resulted in urban warfare. It’s an angry film disguised as a bitchy teen comedy… until it goes off the rails and those teen girls wield an arsenal against the townsfolk looking to burn them at the stake.
I don’t think its a great movie or remotely perfect. The film promises a depiction of madness as the town descends into anarchy… but it goes from 0 to 60 with a “one week later” where everyone is wearing masks to hide their social-media-revealed identities… and they are out hunting the people responsible (they includes the local cop). No build-up at all, really and I think that descent was needed.
But, again, maybe its target audience wouldn’t mind. And more power to them. I had Heathers and part of me wanted JD to blow up the school so I get it. This is a pretty good, very indefensible, very angry, potentially irresponsible movie about teenagers arming themselves for battle against a hypocritical town and their judgmental fingers. What possibly better message could we send to teens, amiright?!?!
Score: 75