Twelve - Doppelt so gut wie Sex!

TWELVE is a film that is at first terrifying in its message about the irresponsible, uncontrollable drive for physical gratification among the wealthy youth of New York, and then a film that makes us profoundly sad that this is what we in our permissive, no established behavioral boundaries society have produced. Joel Schumacher knows his game and once again forces us to examine what we have produced in failing to give our younger generation the security for learning guidelines for social interaction. Jordan Melemed adapted Nick McDonell's novel for the screen and the flow of the story is in the form of offscreen narration by Kiefer Sutherland.

'Twelve' is the new play drug in the party circles of New York City and is supplied to the kids by Lionel (50 Cent), all other drugs being the purview of White Mike (Chace Crawford), a lad whose mother's death from cancer has left him aimless, electing to deal drugs rather than join his confreres in going to the 'proper colleges'. White Mike watches as his high-rolling life is dismantled in the wake of his cousin's murder, which sees his best friend arrested for the crime. White Mike believes that his fellow youth don't need anything, they just want everything and the nexus of his philosophy is drugs. A grossly dysfunctional family of boys - Chris (Rory Culkin), Hunter (Phillip Ettinger) and Claude (Billy Magnussen) - have 'famous parties' in their parents' absence especially for the local bedbunny Sara (Esti Ginzburg). Another sad character is Jessica (Emily Meade) who takes 'Twelve' by mistake and then becomes addicted while her floozy mother (Ellen Barkin) and her supplier Lionel alter her life. The murder of White Mike's cousin and the subsequent effect it has on the rest of these young people leads to a disastrous conclusion. Their lives are as empty as their drug-addled brains.

A story of decay and decadence and misplaced ideals, TWELVE is not pretty to watch, but the performances by some of these young actors make it memorable, forcing us to look at what we've done to our youth.

Grady Harp

I can't agree with the number of bad reviews this movie is getting. The movie is well well acted. Though it deals with issues within the drug scene and social strife of coming of age movies, this movie is not a Hollywood Happy Meal. Its probably not meant to be seen accompanied. The movie speaks to you and for once the author and director has a dialog with the viewer. Regardless of the storyline, if one is or isn't involved with drugs or social pressure, it talks about how ourselves relish in our sufferance forgetting that a better life is our decision. It may be slow at times and maybe it should have been released without so much storytelling, but I like when directors use new ideas. The movie is very good for what it wanted to portray and I am very happy to see how Emma Roberts has grown as an actress.

I hesitated a couple times before I finally decided to rent this film out. Basically the film revolves around teenage individuals who live in the city of New York, and have a position in the social scale of partying. The film is lead by Chase Crawford from "Gossip Girl." In this he stars as "White Mike," a sober drug dealer who has never taken a drug or sip of alcohol. The section of his life of which the film chooses to observe takes place after the death of his Mother of him he had lost to cancer. This leaves him drifting throughout the dullness of New York dealing drugs to his ex-classmates and a particular girl named Jessica, who is hung over from a new drug called "Twelve" and wants more. As she finds herself played by this drug the events in the film escalates into plots of murder, sex and drama leading to the sleek finale of where the mess that explodes at an 18th birthday.

I have to say the best thing about this film is the way the characters interact with each other. Although I am not a fan of Chase Crawford, his performance towards the end of a lost soul left numb by the death of his Mother caused me to feel sympathetic for the guy. Crawford's performance is unlikeable and blank at times but it stands almost unnoticeable by the witty performances of the ensemble.

The film leaves us to deal with a range of characters at different levels. Emily Meade, Jeremy Allen White, Rory Culkin, 50 Cent and Esti Ginzburg all give the film a variety of drama's in different tones. Emily Meade plays Jessica, she is my favorite character with her strong individuality of a girl who knows what she wants yet has a weakness to the drug Twelve, progressing to methods of desperation when she discovers she has no money for one last fix. Rory Culkin delivers another likable performance as Chris, a guy who lives alone in his parents townhouse, throwing parties for the sake of if it, while giving into his weakness of women as he finds himself manipulated by a blonde social princess, Sara Ludlow. He deals calmly and accustomed to his Brothers large explosive egotistical personality. Emma Roberts who stars as Chase Crawford's love interest, tries hard yet innocently to spend time with him. His reaction of always wanting to leave her causes frustration and desire of him healing from grief and committing love to her.

These characters are pleasing to me as I am interested in stories about rich kids of take advantage of their wealth, money and power. These stories fascinate me ever since I read the novel, Less than Zero.

Keifer Sutherland's deep Sin-City-meet's-Ghostface tone of narrating gives the film a dark downbeat pace. His smooth voice embodying the senses of sadness, corruption and pleasure.

The only problem I had with this movie was Rory Culkin's brother Billy Magnussen who performed annoyingly and just plain lame at times. The character Magnussen portrays has just escaped from rehab after assaulting a officer there. His douchebag outbursts, crude comments, and self centered cockiness could have been portrayed with a better actor like Ryan Phillippe or Channing Tatum or just someone better. This stupid brainf****d character however gives a chilling intimidating ending tying the ribbon to this dark interesting film.

The film is not perfect, but for a straight to DVD feature I am pleased with the character driven plots. It doesn't waste time or dwell on certain topics like most underrated films, it's not stereotypical ignoring the use of character's we've seen before. It's cinematography and tone is similar to Daydream Nation starring Kat Dennings as the lead.

I like this film. Check it out.

I read the reviews on-site and many off-site before watching this and saw they were very polarized, so I even went through some European reviews, which treated it quite a bit nicer but which were also pretty polarized. I did notice that, as of this writing, 20% of the people voting here on IMDb gave it a 10, which is significantly higher than even George Clooney's latest film, "The American" received, although it has a somewhat higher overall score. The major complaint I read amongst all the reviews was about the ongoing narration but, I thought, it's only a dollar rental and if it's too intrusive I can always watch something else. So, I decided to give it a spin.

Imagine you are watching a young man in a room, alone with the open casket of his mother, who had just passed away from cancer. He's thinking that the wig the undertaker put on her, to hide her hair loss from the therapy, was unbecoming. He would rather see her for the last time as she really was at the end of her days, bald-headed. This is an important thought of his, which sets up a subsequent scene that would otherwise be totally inexplicable.

How can a film-maker express this thought? By introducing someone into the room with which the young man can have a conversation about this? No, that destroys the solitude of the moment. By having him speak this thought aloud to his mother's remains? Not very likely. By creating a completely new scene where someone is present and then create an artifice to have a conversation about it? No, that adds unnecessary complexity and bulk to wade through, confusing the storyline.

What Schumacher does is to use a narrator to give the viewer a short-cut directly into the minds of his characters at times - many times. This makes the film somewhat more like a visual book than a movie. It wouldn't do for most movies but it was effective here. (I got a good chuckle from the vapidity of the last thought of Sara's that we are exposed to.) It is a different approach but I, for one, enjoyed it. I most probably would not of enjoyed the book this film is based on, as I don't think there was enough plot substance here to make an enjoyable book for me but I do think there was sufficient substance for a film. 6.5 out of 10.

For all the people saying this should be like an 80s kid drug film, or the narrator was annoying. First of all, the drug scene has dramatically changed since the 80s. As far as the narrator, think of the film like a book, there is often an omnipotent narrator that knows more than the characters and tells the story. That's the way the film is done, and it actually works here.

An omnipotent narrator fills in the gaps, and that is exactly what he does in Twelve.

I'm more irritated that people think that the drug scene, in any city, is exactly the same as it was 30 years ago is crazy. Drugs change. Prices change. Kids change. Everything changes. Our entire American culture has changed. So, of course, drugs have changed.