Havoc

Plot synopsis:
The film begins in a parking lot in which a teenage filmmaker named Eric is attempting to document the faux-gangsta lifestyle enjoyed by Allison Lang (Anne Hathaway) and her boyfriend Toby's (Mike Vogel) gang of white upper-class teenagers living in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood. A brawl ensues between Toby's gang and another gang, which ends with both sides fleeing just before police arrive. Later that night, Toby's gang goes to a party at Eric's house, and Allison's relationship with Toby as well her other friends Emily and Sam is further revealed. At the end of the party, Allison performs oral sex on her boyfriend.
The next day, Allison meets with her father, Stuart, at work to discuss family problems, the awkward conversation revealing the virtually non-existent relationship Allison has with her parents. Afterwards, she and her friends drive downtown into East LA, intent on buying marijuana, eventually encountering Mexican drug dealer Hector and his crew. Toby and Hector make a deal, but Toby believes that Hector did not sell him enough for what he paid, and attempts to confront Hector, who pulls a gun on him, humiliating him in front of his friends. Allison persuades Hector to leave Toby alone.
The next night, Allison and her girlfriends return to the location of the drug deal. There, she and her friends once again meet up with Hector and his crew, who invite them to a party at his house. Before they leave, Hector informs Allison of a motel where his crew regularly party, and invites her to stop by if she wishes. The next day, Eric continues his film project at Allison's home, with Allison turning his interview of her into a bizarre mind-game. That evening, Allison meets up with Hector again in a store, and he shows her around his neighborhood, while talking about his family and lifestyle. His guided tour abruptly ends when the police arrive in force, ostensibly on a drug bust. Allison winds up being arrested with the other present gang members, but – save for an argument with her parents and Toby – is let off the hook. The experience only serves to increase Allison's fascination with the inner-city lifestyle. The night after her release, Allison and Emily agree to head downtown the next evening to hang out with Hector's crew.
The two meet up with Hector and his gang at a motel, and a night of partying and drinking results in Allison and Emily asking Hector if they can join his crew. Hector informs them of their initiation; to join the gang, the two must roll a die; the number they roll corresponds to the number of gang members they must have sex with. Allison rolls a one, Emily rolls a three. Hector and Allison pair off, but Allison has second thoughts and refuses to have sex with him, and is thrown out of the room by the gang when she tries to get Emily to leave with her. Emily eagerly engages in sex with Hector, but as she does so, Hector has one of his fellow gang members copulate with her anally, against her will. When Allison storms the room and screams at the men to stop, they flee the room, leaving the two distraught women.
The next day, Allison returns to the motel and confronts Hector over the previous night, but he responds by saying he didn't do anything wrong, that he only did what she and Emily asked him to do. At that moment, a woman shows up at the door, surprising Allison, much to the amusement of Hector, who mocks Allison for thinking he had feelings for her, and calling her a poser who only knows how to play games and nothing about the realities of gang life. The same day, Emily is shown at a police station, accusing Hector and his crew of gang rape. Allison is brought in for questioning, but claims to know nothing about a rape. Hector is subsequently arrested, and members of his crew vow to seek out and silence Allison and Emily, but wind up getting lost in Bel-Air. Meanwhile, Toby and his gang are shown posing with guns in front of Eric and his video camera, making clear their intent on seeking revenge on Hector's crew. Eric later shows Allison the footage, and Allison subsequently calls Toby and makes an ill-fated attempt to convince him that there was no rape and what he is doing is foolish.
Allison informs Emily of what Toby plans to do, and reveals to Emily's parents the events at the motel. This initially upsets Emily to the point of nearly attempting suicide, but eventually the two reconcile. Meanwhile, Toby and his gang arrive at Hector's motel and bust in violently, but only succeed in frightening a group of Latino women and a baby. Toby tries to work up the nerve to shoot them, but, consumed by their desperate pleas to not hurt the baby, realizes he can't and storms out. On their drive home, the gang passes the SUV containing the members of Hector's crew that had been looking for Allison and Emily. The two gangs exchange looks, and the screen subsequently fades to black. After a few seconds the sounds of tires squealing, people shouting and gunfire are heard.
Eric concludes his film with Allison saying that teens will be teens, but if adults are willing to reach out to them to connect and give them even just a small amount of insight, it's like they suddenly know everything.

Tags: violence

Review:
It was either hearing about the various nude scenes of Anne Hathaway or a bunch of white kids trying to act black, and doing it poorly.I said that that "fake" was the first thing that came to mind, because we are immediately presented with this group of rich white kids acting like they are black.
Now it doesn't happen everywhere, or in every school, but I'm pretty sure that you know what I mean.I think this movie, is backed up by pretty well performed acting done by the majority of its cast.
It's like the whole thing was just a bad dream, which is, I suppose, a fitting description of a night spent watching "Havoc," a most aptly-titled film.
Now, Anne was a bad choice for the lead because she does look a little old for the role, but other than that, it was a good film.
If you actually watched this film closely, and had an open point of view, you'd see that the only thing in this movie that lacks credibility, is Anne's age..
At times I found Havoc annoying, but as it progressed, the story became more engaging, and you're supposed to find aspects of it annoying.Anne Hathaway--who is trying her hardest here to distance herself from her previous Disney and family film image by choosing a role where she's naked and sexual as often as possible--plays Allison, a rich, enigmatic high school student, wrapped up with a very plastic wannabe-gangsta-rapper group of white kids.
Both Allison and the audience will likely respond to the Mexican gang better because there is an air of authenticity present with them, thanks largely to the cast playing those roles, but they're just not in the film enough, and the climax and dénouement are far less than satisfactory in that regard.
Likewise, one rich kid character who is making an amateur documentary on the rich kid "gang" comes across as more authentic and interesting, but he ends up having an inexcusably minor role.Still, if you can bear the inundation of poser behavior and lingo, there is an interesting story somewhat buried here, plus some attractive cinematography, a good soundtrack (both the songs and the more traditional score), and I'm certainly not complaining about seeing, um, more of Anne Hathaway.
Writer Stephen Gaghan ('Traffic', 'Rules of Engagement', 'Syriana', etc) has composed a contrived script about rich, bored, Hip Hop imitating, unmotivated teenagers trying to spice up their insignificant lives by treading into the East LA 'danger zone', an experience from which they learn nothing about cross cultural ethnic groups and just return to Pacific Palisades whining about 'damaged goods'.
It is an insulting story, one that stereotypes Hispanics as drug-peddling, raping thugs in a totally black and white manner, not taking into consideration the viewpoint of a cultural group's positive attributes and philosophies.No longer a viable gimmick, the film begins with the tired cliché of a kid making a documentary about his friends, asking what they like and don't like, their goals, their outlooks.
Among these are three girls, the main character being Allison (Anne Hathaway, miscast in every way), who follow their superficial boyfriends on a joyride for drugs into East LA.
To find something they consider "real", they form youth gangs in imitation of the poor folk in East L.A. And then they actually go there, at first to buy drugs; but then rich girls Anne Hatahway and Bijou Phillips try to get involved in the local Hispanic gang scene.
These are basically solid middle class folk, devoted to family, who have a few surface quirks and who happen to sell crack cocaine instead of, say, life insurance.Is it my imagination or does the gorgeous Bijou Phillips always play exactly the same role -- a sexually eager girl who gets in over her head, discovering the hard way that yes, she has limits?
Despite the fact that this movie is like the umpteenth variation of Rebel Without A Cause, anybody who has gone to a high school in an affluent area in the last decade and seen the amount of pampered young 'wiggers' there are knows that the premise of this flick is relevant to today's youth and is worth exploring.
Unfortunately, the movie fails to deliver on this promising premise and only succeeds in wasting a fine performance from Anne Hathaway.The movie WANTS to make a powerful statement about spoiled, naive, pseudo-disillusioned youths searching for identity in the superficial only to receive a colossal reality check when they realize the life they've been imitating isn't as glamorous as they had thought.
Although one must consider the fact that the screenplay was for the most part written by a 16-year-old girl before judging it, it is disappointing that an Academy Award-winning co-writer with some experience with this genre of film (Stephen Gaghan) could not give the screenplay and characters a more authentic feel.Even if it was the screenwriter's intention to make the script's dialogue horrible for the sake of legitimizing just how inane the gang of rich white teens are acting, the horrid screen writing comes off so cartoonish that the viewer will have an extremely difficult time accepting the dialogue, and consequently the behavior, of these characters as being legitimate.
As for the gang of cholo thugs in the movie, they come off as being far too nice and too stereotypical to Latinos, and thus seem only marginally less cartoony that the gang of rich white kids.The movie's lone saving grace is Anne Hathaway.
The script, despite its many shortcomings, succeeds in making it clear just how self-aware, intelligent, and capable of good Hathaway's character is, in spite of her actions as a member of the gang of rich white teens, giving the film its lone three-dimensional character.
That alone will do more to land you mature roles than taking off your top for sex scenes in a poorly-scripted indie movie ever will.When all is said and done, the amount of nudity in this movie only made it worse; when you factor the amount of it in along with in how disappointing the movie is, it only adds evidence to the argument that the only reason this movie exists was for Hathaway to prove to us just how far she was willing to go to avoid being typecast as Princess Mia Thermopolis for the rest of her acting career...which is a shame, considering her legitimately solid acting job in this movie.Rent "Kids" or "Thirteen" instead; both films are about topics similar to this movie and both are far better..
This movie represents a studio advertising Anne Hathaway's nudity and making money off of it while putting a horrible plot and other actors/actresses around her.
Anne Hathaway who is trying to distance herself from her previous Disney movie image by choosing a role where she's naked as often as possible.She really does a great job as the pretty little rich girl.BTW The best characters were Hector and his gang..
this rich white kid trys to wear all his "bling" and its just overkill.Anyway besides the horrible main characters, the ONLY believable and semi-realistic people in this movie were the sixteenth street gang, and they were still portrayed pathetically.
(At least MMW was a p*ss-take of these sorts of kids, rather than trying to be serious.)This film is not entertainment.Watch it once, but no more (that is if you can bear the annoyance of the little, rich, immature, 'gansta-rap-imitating' punks).People who rated this film highly need to grow-up, get real and get a life.
Sex, drugs and gangsterism from the hop is hip culture, this movie attempts to provide a social commentary about the lives of super rich teenagers in the Palasades, wasting their bored lives away by trying to emulate another culture they think is cool, the wannabes who chose not to conform to the norms, but try their darndest best to be one in the 'hood.Anne Hathaway assumes the lead role as Allison Lang, a wide-eyed teenager whose language is as beautiful as her appearance.
It's a primal attraction and sexual tension between the girls and the men (not the boys they hang out with, who pee in their pants when faced with real danger - acting cool is not cool), and between Allison and Hector (Freddy Rodriguez).But like all revelations, sometimes it takes the hard way to learn a lesson, and the movie picked up on this rather rapidly in the last third, once they got enticed into playing a game of dice (with sexual connotations) in order to be initiated into Hector's gang.
Basically, the audience observes the attraction of an alternative lifestyle, of wannabes thinking they can handle it all, and of redemption and change.While it was a surprise to see Michael Biehn in the movie, the movie clearly belonged to Anne Hathaway in her very first attempt to break away from her goody-two-shoes roles like in the Princess Diaries and Ella Enchanted.
The ending also very true because in situations that could have been avoided; end in bloodshed everyday.I wish there would have been a little bit more to the story though I feel like there was something missing maybe something that was deleted from from the scenes that shouldn't have been deleted,but I think we got robbed about 10 to 20 mins of film..
Then there are only your parents who will feel sorry for their good little girl.So if you like student movies and the cool "afroamerican-hiphop-like" (I rather use this expression that other commonly used) Mexican slang but don't like totally mainstream at the same time this could be the right pick.
The premise of the story intrigued me, I'm not a white person myself (which might be why I can see it from an unbiased standpoint, because I'm not Latino or Black either), but I grew up in New York City, so I can vouch for it's accuracy, because California isn't the only place that has "wiggas".This movie could have been done with more class, the nudity was definitely unnecessary, they could've gotten the exact same point across having Hathaway and Phillips keep their bras on (as one of the other commentators said, some things would have been better off left to the imagination, and this was definitely one of those things).
Elizabeth Berkley tried this same 360 move with Showgirls, and she's practically been laughed out of Hollywood with a scarlet letter "S" branded on her (those were her own words!).Choosing Hathaway in particular to play a role like this is unconvincing since she looks like she's in her late 20s yet she's portraying a teenager, her face looks too angelic and smiley to be playing such a devious character.The writing was a little skewed as well, some of the things that they had Hathaway say (such as, "teenagers think they are invincible"), is not something an actual teenager would say.But as far as everything else goes, the acting was great, the decorated cast was commendable, and the plot line to the story is definitely a reality check to all those little rich kids who are never satisfied with their lives no matter how much they have, this movie shows them to appreciate what they have and to just be thankful that they're alive and don't have to deal with what people forced to live in the ghetto have to deal with, because these kids do think everything is a game and it's not.
Anne Hathaway, Bijou Phillips, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and the other guy decide since they are so hardcore that they're going to try to score some pot from East L.A. In return, they are swept into a crazy world of actual poverty, crime, and drugs.
This is a good film.It's not exactly Hollywood quality and thank God for that.It focuses on a certain branch of teenagers who want something different from their ordinary lives.As Allison states, they're "really, really bored" I found it very interesting how an intelligent girl lives a double life hidden away from her parents.
Yea some of the stereotypes of characters were extremely overdone and artificial, and the thought of two random white girls getting in good with a gang highly respected in "the hood" is totally unrealistic, but I think that's what the creators of the movie wanted to express.
No one likes to be made a fool of and these white boys looked truly foolish.Lastly, comes the big question about this film --Anne Hathaway.
Then, of course, comes the question, did Anne Hathaway take this picture to shed her good girl image and get directors to start thinking about her handing more mature roles?
Like Larry Clark and Gus van Zant, she delivers incredibly believable, naturalistic characters, free from the crappy "teen dialog" so prevalent in typical Hollywood fare.Kudos to Anne Hathaway for bravely and aggressively shedding her Disney image, and to Bijou Phillips, who is hands down the reigning sex kitten of cinema, once again delivering a performance which would pop a gasket in John Ashcroft's heart.This is not the first film to deal with suburban "wiggers" getting into trouble by pushing their gangsta posing too far into the real world.
Interestingly, both Levin and Barbara Kopple began their careers directing documentaries.The gang members depicted in this movie are as real as they get, and thankfully they are not one-dimensional clichés.The plot line is fairly simple with an obvious outcome, but if you like intense personal drama with a very dark, sexy edge, this is as good as it gets..
It's an hour and a half of your life you'll desperately wish you could get back.The story here follows a bunch of spoiled, rich, white teenagers who apparently watched a couple of rap videos and decided they wanted to be "gangstas." Their pathetic attempts to act tough while driving around in Mommy's luxury car are truly hilarious.
The Hispanic gang is certainly more real and more interesting and Freddy Rodriguez, who plays Hector, is far and away the best actor in the movie.
I've lived in Los Angeles for a couple of years and I know the area of the Pacific Palisades as well as the exact area in East LA where the 16th Street Gang supposedly lives, and it's not surprising to me the way these kids in this movie act.
Anne Hathaway plays an out of control hussy who does things like strip down and pull her breasts out for a hand-wringing high school friend who just wants to film an interview of her.
On the one hand I think the chase of exitement of the privileged bored teenagers, as portrayed in the film, is an interesting subject and I like Anne Hathaway.
What "Havoc" does is presenting us actors like Hathaway, Bijou Phillips, Mike Vogel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (he nailed it, though) acting like a gang, forcing some racial stereotypes at times (specially in the beginning), very over-the-top.
'Havoc' is pretty much like any other teen-rebel film but it's not that bad for a one-time watch.
rent it and watch it with your friends, guaranteed laughs/good times this is a strange hilarious movie things of note: -the way this movie tries to cop from other and actually good movies such as the way it tries to say something about race/class (kinda like "crash", or not) , has a sensitive boy that films everything ("american beauty"), deals with rich kids being bored/having uninvolved parents (a million movies, a little "cruel intentions" in here, or not) - everyone dying of laughter every time characters try to be ghetto (especially when it's that kid from "3rd rock from the sun"/ Anne Hathaway) - Anne Hathaway being insane by getting half naked for a movie like this - random boobs/ doing lines of coke off boobs - CLASSIC lines like: "b*tch got parents?!" (X a million ) this movie was made to be a cult classic.
The shallow parents and the shallow teens are fairly true to life, if you're familiar with the Palisades.The film isn't necessarily about teaching lessons or any after school special for sure, Anne Hathaway is not all T n A in this movie like someone else commented, if that's all you remember then you've got problems.
The movie start with Alison(Hathaway) and her best friend Em(Philips) having a boring sex-o-drug party, continue with Alison and Em having a sex-o-thrilling party and finish with no party.The girls try to be so called modern day hippies but they succeed in finding boredom and fake behavior by their friends and families until they meet the Latino gangsta culture of east side L.A. which open their eyes for the real life.Unfortunately they find out that real life can be more shocking than a Christmas comedy.The GOOD: + Anne Hathaway is hot!!But she has the "Angelina Syndrome".
It reflects the true living of several rich kids, i know some people just like them in the movie.
Now, I fully understand reasons why I should have never bothered to have even tried.Attempting to comprehend this movie days after seeing it just hurts me.It revolves around a group of upper-class prep white kids (featuring Hathaway and Bijou Phillips), who hang around and try to attack like they're black.
But to see Anne Hathaway being the leading role in this film and doing the crazy things she's doing really shocked the hell out of me.Bijou Philips is good and plays in another film about white rich kids who are trying to be gangsta.
In my opinion, any black person would be like "What the hell is this!?" But I think this is a really good film and Anne Hathaway did a very good job to change her image as thing innocent girl from these Disney movies to becoming this "pretend" good girl into a bad ass girl.
This movie is a waste of time , I heard good things , but this film was less than great, The film is basically about rich kids going in East L.a , doing drugs and trying to be Ghetto,getting into trouble and hating being rich and white..