Better than I expected

Rating: 8/10 (9 July 2005)

I saw the trailer for this film a number of times, since newline ran it with The Return of the King. The trailer made it look not very interesting, and I thus never bothered to see it in the theater. But I decided to rent the director's cut from NetFlix to give it a try. It was much different -- and much better -- than I expected.
The whole thing fits together rather well, and the ending is powerful Â– though rather upsetting.
My only compliant is that there is a bit too much extraneous violence in a couple of spots for my tastes (sometimes only little things, but rather unnecessary things, like stupid frat boys throwing beer on pledges). A few minutes less of that would have been just fine.
But overall this is a much better film than I anticipated. It was clever, well written, and overall well done