The Bling Ring (2013)

What a beautiful movie!

Please don't spend money on this.

Lack of good storyline.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is barely a story. The entire thing is just an endless repeat of the main "characters" robbing celebrities' houses and partying at the club afterwards, in fact it's as if one scene just got stuck and repeated over and over again until it created a black hole of bad dialogue, flashing lights, pulsing music and annoying teenage girls. It's all simply nauseating! The few nice things that can be said about this "film", such as the great cinematography and the talented main actors who try their hardest to say the terrible lines they're given, aren't enough to save it.

Director Sofia Coppola also co-produced and wrote this expansion of Nancy Jo Sales' 2010 Vanity Fair article "The Suspect Wore Louboutins", based on real events, about a circle of trendy, well-to-do southern California teenagers, reckless and celebrity-obsessed, who see themselves as rock stars by virtue of their youth and position. A new addition to the group, an insecure kid eager to be with the in-crowd, is quickly swallowed up by the nighttime excitement, doing drugs and robbing celebrity houses in the Hollywood Hills without regard to the consequences. Though Coppola obviously did her homework, and her film looks and sounds authentic, one wonders what we're supposed to take away from the endless scenes of teenage hedonism and material worship, the camera caressing the contents of celebrity closets. It also isn't clear why this new student (Israel Broussard) is picked out from the high school pack to be a part of the Bling Ring, or why he's so readily accepted by female peers who, on the basis of looks and stature, would appear to operate in a different league. Coppola's uncanny ear for dialogue and rock and rap selections continues to impress, but it may be time for her to graduate from 'edgy' pop culture and return to more thought-provoking material. A 2011 cable-TV movie (using the same title!) covers the same territory, and is equally disheartening though on a much lower budget. *1/2 from ****

The Bling Ring follows a group of young women (and some random guy) as they realize how easy it is to sneak into celebrity's homes and steal stuff, so that's what they do. On occasion the movie managed to pull off some decent directing. There were a few takes that were of a decent length, and I think that somewhere in this mess of a film was a good director somehow held back. The rest of the movie is complete trash. I absolutely hated every minute of this film. By the 9-minute mark I was done. Yes, I even checked to see how quick it was. Thankfully, it was only 90 minutes long. My breaking point for this movie came as soon as I realized how bad of an actor that Israel Broussard is, which is, like I said, at the 9-minute mark. He was just awful, reading his lines with so little of anything that it just made it hard to watch. And even without him, the other acting was super mediocre. Most of these actresses seemed to have been hired for their looks and not their abilities, because most of them were made slightly more tolerable by how pretty they were. But even then, their characters were so unlikable that they kind of ceased to even be pretty and instead looked stuck-up and frustrating, thus creating a downward spiral for all of them. Bad characters. Moving on to the editing. Most of the time I don't even notice film editing, but here it's so blatantly bad. There's nothing special about it, so it only adds fuel to the garbage fire of a film that this already is. The writing is just awful. The dialogue is boring and uninteresting, but moreover the presentation of the story is so incredibly redundant. It's just a detailed montage of the same scenes over and over. They go to a house, steal stuff while complaining about clothes and saying 'oh my gosh, chill out' in the most frustratingly white girl-ish way possible, then get drunk and high and dance at parties to bad music, and occasionally go home. There's nothing interesting happening, there's no interesting characters or plot, and it just sucks. And it's not even like there's a level of suspense as to whether these characters are going to get caught. Of course they get caught, they're a bunch of idiot teens whom we've seen in security footage multiple times throughout it. There's another redundant bit, security footage shots. We see it over and over again. "We get it, the girls were caught on camera." Overall The Bling Ring is awful. I ended up taking a 20 minute break towards the end simply because of how boring and uninteresting it was, then later regretting that break as I realized that I could've been done the movie sooner than when I had actually finished it. It's just so poorly written, poorly acted, and repetitive. I actually like some of these actors, but these were roles made for nobody. Nobody should have played these characters, because that would've meant that this movie would've never been made. In the end I wouldn't hesitate to recommend that you burn this one, or at the very least spare yourself the trouble of seeing it.

Sophia Coppola is a brilliant film maker who is a master at capturing characters without delving too deep into their psyche. That may preclude some critics from placing her high on the list if best film makers, but her poetic cinematography and creative scene direction are so good, the glimpse works perfectly. Had she been able to somehow give us more depth of the characters, I would have given this 9/10.The cinematography in this film is brilliant. The break-in scene of Audrina Patridge's glass home captured entirely from an external view with a ultra slow zoom throughout is amazing. Scenes such as Israel Broussard hanging alone in his room, wrapped in his euphoric "pre-game" pre-partying prep moment, and Emma Watson preparing what to wear for her court appearance are stand-outs. I am confident every actor who has worked with Sophia has great respect for her and likely most adore her. She brings out something in each actor we have never seen before. This is a trademark of Sofia's body of work. Israel Broussard, Emma Watson and Leslie Mann produce the standout performances that bind this movie together. Bravo!Emma Watson's Nicki illustrates how skilled she is at becoming the character she portrays. I think Emma will continue evolve into one of the world's most respected actors. Leslie Mann is perfect as a new age rich parent whose altruistic and spiritual intentions, and home school parenting have noble intent, but is blind to what's happening to her daughter, and lost in the LA haze of self-importance and desire for fame that surrounds the show business culture. And Israeli Broussard produces the only character we get the opportunity to care about. Clearly a promising future for this young actor. The cinematography is brilliant. The break-in scene of Audrina Patridge's glass home captured entirely from an external view with a ultra slow zoom throughout is amazing. Scenes such as Israel Broussard hanging in his room alone, wrapped in his euphoric "pre-game" pre-partying prep moment, and Emma Watson preparing what to wear for her court appearance are stand-outs. Catie Chang, Taissa Farmiga and Claire Pfister all put in completely believable performances and all deserve praise. Catie carries a central character effectively throughout the film. The scenes of all the characters as under-age club VIPs out at a hot LA nite club, are spot-on, and each is perfectly subtle in delivering A-level performances. Sophia ALWAYS brings out the best in actors, and no doubt promising futures for these actors. So, in The Bling Ring, we have a front row seat of careless, self-absorbed, peer-pressure influenced teens, who rapidly spin out of control over their addiction to having to have the "jewels" and lifestyle of the most famous and glamorous tabloid celebrities (Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom, etc). If Sophia were able to show us more below the surface, this would have been a near perfect film. Perhaps it wouldn't have worked though.I do hope Sophia ups the ante in producing more frequent movies. I get the idea of life balance and picking your spots, but the limited number of movies she has done is not enough. We need more Sophia Coppola please!