Nietzsche and testosterone in a teenager is a dangerous combination.
A well-known proverb states that there are devils in a quiet pool, well, since the film is Canadian, then you can remember the English equivalent, sounding like “beware of a silent dog and still water”. So many films have been filmed about quiet-award-winners-maniacs that at the sight of a school botanist you involuntarily beware of angering him - it is not enough what legions of horned people lurk in this intelligent head. If he wants to kill him, he'll sweep his tails so that he can't find it. Well, or arrange the second "Columbine", shooting classmates and committing suicide - for such examples do not go far.
In the main focus of the tape almost debutant Ray Xue – four such smart, far-sighted teenagers with a kind of ideas about extracurricular activity. While others cheerlead, play chess and go to electives, they gather in a lab under the pretext of a joint project and begin discussing another brutal murder. They feel excitement and excitement, planning a crime in the smallest detail, spying on a previously noted victim and looking for information about bank accounts, friends, hobbies. They want everything to be played out, as if to notes, but without successful improvisation it is not enough. Two brothers are the sons of a policeman, the girl of one of them is an orphan with living parents, and another quiet ballerina from a good, loving family is such a criminal group. Do you suspect a maniac frightening the whole city?
The film is a classic thriller with a complete lack of humor (if you want something similar, but funny, then I recommend the “Extracurricular Classes” released a year later) and a viscous atmosphere, which is supported by both a noir video sequence and sad music. The director does not go beyond the genre, does not hit the kitsch ... in general, does nothing wrong and at the same time – nothing outstanding. “Homicide Homework” is not scary in the sense in which “Paradise Lake” or “Funny Games” are scary – there is no such obvious and terrifying element of naturalness. But the script tries to at least partially answer the question about the origins of animal cruelty, sometimes waking up in teenagers who just a couple of years ago were funny puffy five-graders. Sometimes the unstable psyche requires only a small push – a lack of warmth on the part of parents or in its own interpretation of Nietzsche. No wonder the story emphasizes that the only girl from the company, which has a loving mother and father, and personal life, and tempting prospects, trying to fight their own aggression.
The picture is worth watching for those who are interested in the anatomy and psychology of adolescent crime, and for a wide range of viewers it is still boring.