Give me a break!

Rating: 1/10 (25 October 2007)

I cannot understand the praise for this stinker. If I was a Republican, I'd tell my kids and my teenage gay lover (they all have one) that this will happen to you if you're a hippie.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a tree hugger. A lot of positive and good ideas and concepts in this film. But it's obvious that this guy was bat-poop nuts. The character was played as sane, but there is no chance he was in real life. Nevermind that he was critically selfish for what he did to his family and sister, regardless of the situation. If he wanted to contribute, there were a lot more sane ways to do it.
It really took the life out of any anti-society argument.
But to focus on the film I was shocked that Sean Penn couldn't do a better job with this kid's acting. Generally it was passable but then there were some very bad scenes, like he was reading off cue cards for the first time. Some nice camera work but nothing really remarkable about the rest of the direction. And it was WAY TOO LONG. Very self-serving of Senor Penn.
(Also, anybody know that there was a rope bridge 1/4 mile down from this bus? Most locals apparently thought this kid was a fool.)
For all the kids that would like to go on a similar journey of self-discovery: DON'T! There is something worse than a winter in that bus: watching this movie.