Nerve

Hollywood is fascinated with high-adrenaline, high-stakes, highly suspenseful films, and while these are very much in demand attributes in a lot of films today, they should never be the mainstay of what carries a well-crafted film. So with this said, I truly went to go see "Nerve" with great trepidation only to realize while the film was unfolding before me, it was, by my surprise, an interesting and entertaining film all the while teaching us a valuable lesson.

Industrious high school senior, Vee Delmonico (Emma Roberts) has had it with living life on the sidelines. When pressured by friends, specifically best friend, Sydney (Emily Meade) to join this popular online game Nerve (a rather truth or dare game minus the truth part), Vee reluctantly decides to sign up for just one dare in what seems like harmless fun. Her dare? She has one minute to find a stranger in a public place and kiss them in order to win a $100.00. She finds Ian (Dave Franco) and so succeeds at her dare. Of course as the winnings of the subsequent dares increase, so do the risks. But like a lot of things that become addictive, she finds herself caught up in the thrill of the adrenaline-fueled competition partnered with her new friend/stranger Ian, the game begins to take a sinister turn with increasingly dangerous acts all manipulated by 'watchers' of the game. She, along with other 'players' of the game culminate into a high stakes finale that will determine Vee's and others' entire future.

Others to round out the cast are Miles Heizer as Tommy, friend of Vee's, Kimiko Glenn as Liv, Marc John Jeffries as Wes, Colson Baker as Ty, Brian Marc as J.P., Juliette Lewis as Nancy, Vee's mom, Ed Squires as Chuck, Josh Ostrovsky as Dirt Beard, tattoo artist and Samira Wiley as Hacker Kween.

This was amazing well directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman ("Catfish"(Documentary) '10, "3 x 3" (TV movie) '11, "Paranormal Activity 3" '11, "Paranormal Activity 4" '12) plus shorts. Considering these filmmaker's relative newness to the theatrical biz, these guys are a natural. The emotion each one of these characters exuded was definitively realistic, especially given how the youth population responds to certain things in a much different way than that of their adult counterpart. Of course, these two directors being young themselves obviously had an inside track into the way young people think and react. It was also creatively written by Jessica Sharzer based on a novel by Jeanne Ryan. Again, this writer, like the directors, doesn't have a ton of experience to her credit, however she was able to pull off an interesting, fresh and original script, which is more than I can say for many of the seasoned writers out there today. Surely there were places of a bit of choppiness and places that just dropped, but certainly not enough to take away from my attention to the storyline at hand. After this film, I'd like to see what these filmmakers could do with another project. Actually, the two directors have "Viral" coming out soon. I suspect we'll see. Not sure what Sharzer (the writer) has planned in the future--something soon I hope.

If high-adrenaline, high-suspense is your thing, this smart, tight little independent film will fit the bill. If nothing else grabs you, the message of we need not spend too much time with our technology is something that hopefully will hit home with many, especially youth. This film doesn't market on star power, but that just makes the script that much more important for any effectiveness toward its audience. All's I can say is, "game on"!

Out of 4 Stars: 3                                Rated: PG-13                                  96mins.