THE YOUNG UNKNOWNS A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2001 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): **
"The story is dead," Charlie (Devon Gummersall) says. "Image rules." Charlie is an auteur, at least in his own mind. He is a young filmmaker with an ego as big as the swimming pool outside his father's LA hills home in which he lives. Actually, Charlie has only done commercials, but he has impressive plans. In the meantime, he belittles everyone else from his incompetent DP (Director of Photography) to his girlfriend, Paloma (Arly Jover, BLADE), who is merely a production coordinator.
Writer/director Catherine Jelski's THE YOUNG UNKNOWNS is based on Wolfgang Bauer's play, and it shows. The claustrophobic and static movie is in bad need of some opening up. This isn't helped by the music choices, which are uniformly disconcerting and just flat all wrong. The story, which will remind you or HURLYBURLY, concerns people "in the business," who hang out in a house, while doing drugs, bragging and trading insults.
Charlie tells his girlfriend his priorities, "I take care of myself - me, myself, I." His friend Joe (Eion Bailey) stops by to wrestle with Charlie like an older brother and to show off his new squeeze, a blonde model named Cassandra (Leslie Bibb, SEE SPOT RUN). Charlie loves himself the most, and Joe clearly has eyes for him as well.
After spending time listening to these four unknowns party, you will feel like Cassandra, who remarks to Charlie, "I am so sick of this." Me too.
THE YOUNG UNKNOWNS runs 1:27. It is not rated but would be an R for hard drug usage, violence, language and sexual situations. It would be acceptable for high school seniors and older.
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