This is an odd thriller, which leaves you wondering long after the end credits have rolled.
Luce (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) is a model student, saved from a war-torn African country and nurtured back to functional life by his caring parents, Peter and Amy Edgar (Tim Roth and Naomi Watts). Luce runs track and is on the debate team, smart as a whip. But his one teacher, Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer) gets him to write a paper which he inhabits a murderous dictator and she finds illegal fireworks in his locker. But she opts to protect him, turning the contraband over to his mother who refuses to believe that her picture-perfect son could do any wrong.
But there is more to Luce than what meets the surface. He protects his sons who gang raped a drunk, unconscious girl whom Luce used to date and he graffitis Ms. Wilson's house and somehow sneaks in to the school and does use those fireworks to destroy her desk all because everyone has to fit in to her perception of the social norms.
For the record, I think Luce is a sneakily dangerous person who should have never used those illegal fireworks and his parents were wrong not to turn him into the police. But that's just my opinion. Though the film leaves many things unresolved, the performances are chilling and brilliant and the plot is new and original, which is always refreshing. Grade: B+
Side Notes:
-Marsha Stephanie Blake shines in the smaller role of Harriet's mentally unstable sister who manages to escape from the mental hospital, an incident which should have been explained.
-Luce and Stephanie (Andrea Bang) have sex in a secret shack in the middle of the woods, that's just super weird.
-Harriet should have locked her front door behind her when Luce showed up with flowers.
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