Movies Reviews

Twelve – Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Aug 6, 2010, 14:32 GMT

Based on the book by Nick McDonell. The grim tale follows prep school dropout White Mike as he takes a year off to deal a new drug to his privileged friends on Manhattan\'s Upper East Side. The kids would appear to have everything they could want but in reality they are left to their own devices by parents more interested in business trips and holidays. They indulge in sex, drugs and ...more

Joel Schumacher’s dabbling in numbers again but Twelve is a more satisfactory result than The Number 23, 8MM, or 2000 Malibu Road. 

Schumacher, whose diverse body of work covers everything from Vietnam, hijinks in a carwash, death brinksmanship, transvestites to Batman hits Manhattan’s rich, social teens hard.

The film opens with Keifer Sutherland’s rhythmic narration that is more poetry than explication.  Schumacher tells his tale in the same rhythms; the effect is exhilarating and fresh. 

The there are the rhythms of the kids loves, the seasons, the movement from day into night and life and death.  It’s an extended tone poem with artistic flourishes that leaven the kids’ tough stories and add some comfort.

It’s summertime and things are gearing up for the party of the season.  A close-knit group of kids spanning the economic, cultural, ethnic, and educational gamut are looking for good times together.  As we know good times can come with high price tags and even these kids’ rich daddies can’t cover the cost of this party.  Especially when they’re serving the latest psychedelic drug Twelve.

Schumacher throws in some serious artistic flourishes, like the dreamscapes of the lead character, in which he meets his dead mother, lies in the ground with her and lives out his sad fantasies.  It’s another world bathed in white. 

He riffs on the trippy drug hallucinations of good student (Emily Meade) who can’t lay off the Twelve.  She talks to her stuffed rabbits, which laugh and poke fun at her while discussing her social status.

White Mike (Chase Crawford), the drug dealer who’s mourning his mother, is a drug dealer who has never taken a drug or a drink.  He lives outside, doing business with his private schools friends and maintaining limited contact with his blue collar childhood friend (Emma Roberts) who keeps him rooted. 

White Mike refuses to deal Twelve, but his cousin is a fan.  His murder by a Twelve dealer (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) throws White Mike into a new world of pain.

Rory Culkin is positively amazing as the favored son in a tragic family; just because he is favored doesn’t mean life is easy, quite the opposite.  His brother (Billy Magnusson has a screw loose, he’s emotionally weak and pops steroids, making him a triple threat that could explode at any moment when his mother orders him to leave the family.

The hottest girl in the school (Sports Illustrated swimsuit Esti Ginzburg) is completely aware that she is a manipulative narcissist but doesn’t give a damn.  She is the unchallenged prime mover of the social set and has a bargain with her friends that they do her bidding and she favors them with a blinding smile and maybe an invitation to her party.

Ellen Barkin makes a stunning cameo as an Upper East Side matriarch, the way we imagined her when she lived with her rich and powerful ex-husband.  The woman has her chops.  

All these characters are careening down a path of destruction.  Tensions builds nicely as we approach the day of the party and as we move forward, we learn who the kids are, and what their secrets and alliances are.  It’s an interesting sojourn into a rarefied world where money can’t buy you love.

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35mm drama
Written by Jordan Melamed, Nick Mcdonell
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Opens: August 6
Runtime: 93 minutes
MPAA: ?
Country: USA / France