Analysing ‘Total Film’ review for ‘Elephant.’

This is the shortest review that I’m going to analyse from all the three. By just looking at the stars that’s been given by them, (2 out of 5) I could clearly tell that unlike the other two reviews, this one, is going to be a negative review. Also, reading the first sentence clearly clarifies how they feel about this movie: ‘Inexplicably over-praised on its theatrical release and astonishingly awarded the Palme d'Or at Cannes ahead of Dogville and Mystic River, you re-watch Gus Van Sant's minimalist teen flick in the hope it will somehow justify such extravagant kudos. Unfortunately, no.’ Unlike the majority of the reviewers, they disagree with the quality of the movie and are actually quite ‘surprised’ that this film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival over films such as Mystic River. They call the movie a ‘teen flick’ and sound as if they are not affected as much as the previous reviewers. They later on criticise, the ‘non-professional’ actors and are wondering why the killers did what they did: ‘Are the killers psychotic gay Nazis or symptoms of a wider social malaise?’ Unlike the ‘Chicago sun times’ review who clearly stated that leaving a reason ambiguous is the exact reason to why everything happens, they want to know a very clear and specific reason to why these ‘psychotic gay Nazi’ individuals carry out this massacre.

The language is quite straightforward and the adjectives which they’ve used to describe their pessimistic feelings about the film, (such as inexplicably and astonishingly) is quite effective and leaves us with a very clear impression about the review’s point.

The whole review:

2 Stars out of 5.

By ‘Total Film’:

Inexplicably over-praised on its theatrical release and astonishingly awarded the Palme d'Or at Cannes ahead of Dogville and Mystic River, you re watch Gus Van Sant's minimalist teen flick in the hope it will somehow justify such extravagant kudos. Unfortunately, no. Elephant remains an exercise in banality whose Columbine-style massacre, though expertly staged, takes place in a moral and political vacuum. Are the killers psychotic gay Nazis or symptoms of a wider social malaise? A good question the director fails to address, content merely to stalk his non-professional actors around the corridors of a typical American high school in puppyish thrall to their radiant youth.