Raising Victor Vargas (2002)

First of all, write the script on a napkin. Who needs more than that? After all we're not a Hollywood film.

Then get amateur actors. It will be good for the festival hype. After all, who needs people who have spent years honing their craft? Then, hire a cinematographer who doesn't know how to light. You see, if it's well-lit, it won't look "real" and the festival people won't like it. Who needs to have professional level photography anyway? Then hire a ten-year old who has never held a camera to be your operator. It will give your movie that completely amateurish touch that festival screeners will mistake for "reality" and guarantee that even though you will empty the seats from real people, critics and a small sliver of the audience who over-intellectualize will scream "genius" because they won't believe this was just complete amateur-hour.

Once you've done that, buy your ticket to the Festival of Bad Movies aka Sundance.

What a sad waste.

Fmovies: This movie sucks. It is about a Latino teenager whose plight is that he is discovered having sex with a fat girl, and spends the movie trying to win the heart of a pretty girl so that he can restore his pride. Raising Victor Vomitus is in the league of Better Luck Tomorrow - another film which attempts to reveal the intricacies of a cultural group - but which really only makes everyone look stupid. My conclusion after seeing these two really egregious films is that if you are curious about Latino or Asian youths - the best way to satisfy that curiousity is to meet some of them, read a book, or wait until a good movie comes out. However, if you want to waste money, be bored, and learn nothing - get a pedicure. At least you will have something to show for it.

How many more of those fake "slice of life" movies need to be made? Hopefully not too many.

Raising Victor Vargas is a very self-conscious attempt by the director Peter Solett at garnering the attention of Hollywood. Nothing wrong with that in general. What is wrong with this film in particular is that it ignores the audience and piles on every cliché in the book of supposedly "edgy" Hollywood independent production.

It's supposed to be "real" so left shake the camera "documentary style", except no documentarian would shake the camera on purpose...

It's "edgy" so let's not waste any time lighting the film.

It's "hip", so let's have the children use swear words like Al Pacino in Scarface...

And so on, and so forth. All that you are left with is a very self-conscious attempt at impressing Hollywood that won't impress anyone outside of the "rarefied" indie crowd that seems to still heap acclaim on every bad film.

Raising Victor Vargas fmovies. Someone will have to explain to me why every film that features poor people and adopts a pseudo-gritty look is somehow seen as "realistic" by some people.

I didn't see anything realistic about the characters (although the actors did their best with really bad parts) or the situations. Instead, I saw a forced, self-conscious effort at being "edgy", "gritty" and "down and dirty".

Sadly, it takes a lot more than hand-holding the camera without rhyme or reason and failing to light the film to achieve any of the above qualities in any significant way.

It's a sad commentary on the state of independent film distribution that the only films that see the inside of a movie theater are nowadays all carbon copies, with bad cinematography, non-existent camera direction and a lot of swearing striving to pass themselves as "Art".

It's little wonder that films like "In the Bedroom" or "About Schmidt" get such raves. I found them to be meandering and very average, but compared to the current slew of independent clones like "Raising victor Vargas" they are outright brilliant and inspired.

A few years ago seeing an "independent" film meant that you would likely be treated to some originality and a lot of energy and care, and maybe a few technical glitches caused by the low budgets, nowadays, it means that chances are you'll get yet another by-the-numbers, let's-shake-the-camera-around-for-two-hours attempt at placating the lack of taste of independent distributors. And of course all that to serve characters and situations that are completely unreal and contrived.

Is it any surprise that the independent marketplace has fewer and fewer surviving companies? Not at all when you see films like Raising Victor Vargas that do nothing but copy the worst of the films that preceded them.

This "film" is one of the most dreadful things I have ever seen.

Please do yourselves a favor and avoid this incompetent concoction.

Shaking the camera and having your actors adopt scowls does not count as "direction", which this film needed in droves. Not that the writing was all the wonderful, rather we were left with a bunch of completely artificial characters directed in that most artificial way (the pseudo-documentary "style" prized by those who don't know how to direct).

This film gives the impression that it was done cynically to appeal to critics who don't know the first thing about film-making (which is most of them).

Just terrible. It says a lot about Sundance and what it's become that Victor Vargas was showcased there.

True fans of film will love this authentic movie.

I disagree with the trolls who are rating this movie a one-star and calling it unrealistic. While I don't have the background or come from the environment of the protagonists, I've spent many years working in lower income and working class neighborhoods and feel the acting was very real and representative of how teenagers behave. I don't know what the basis is for others' comments that the film is "unrealistic". The dialog is great.

The low budget production value didn't bother me a bit. I felt that the natural lighting enhanced the character of the film. The focus was entirely on the story line and character development and not glitzy Hollywood propping or melodrama.

I completely bought into the character's motivations and reactions. The acting was believable and impressive for new and non-actors.

If your idea of good film is Transformers or Fast & Furious, then skip it. If you enjoy good character driven dramas, then see it.

(Regarding the negative commenters being "trolls": click on their names and you will see most have no other reviews or only negative reviews.)