HAVOC

US, 2005, 85 minutes, Colour.
Anne Hathaway, Bijou Philips, Shiri Appleby, Michael Biehn, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Matt O’ Leary, Freddie Rodriguez, Laura San Giacomo, Mike Vogel, Channing Tatum.
Directed by Barbara Kopple.

Havoc is a brief LA drama about two affluent girls who take up with members of a Latino gang and suffer the physical, mental and moral consequences. Bored teenagers take up with men who struggle for survival, are brutal and amoral.

The film has a very strong cast with Anne Hathaway (Princess Diaries, Ella Enchanted, Devil Wears Prada) getting down and dirty, so to speak. Freddie Rodriguez (Six Feet Under, Harsh Times) is the leader of the gang.

Direction is by Barbara Kopple, best known as a documentary director (Oscar-winning Harlan County Line and the biography of Gregory Peck). Not as insightful as might have been expected.

1. The background of the director? Documentary film-maker? Television episodes on police work? The combination of these for this teenage drama, melodrama? Observation of teenage life?

2. The Los Angeles settings, the affluence of Pacific Palisades, homes, schools? The contrast with East LA, the Hispanic areas, the homes and the streets, the clubs, the gangs? The songs and the musical score?

3. The title, havoc for the central characters – and the consequences of choices and their creating havoc?

4. The affluent young girls, being filmed by Eric, the home video and his editing it, his interviews? Alison and saying that she was bored? Their having nothing to do, the rich kids aping the gangsta style of East LA? Poses? Language, guns, sex? Alison and her relationship with Toby? Toby and his leadership? Alison and her friendship with Emily? Their being together, trying to be adventurous?

5. The character of Alison, at school, intelligent, her answers in class? The friendship with Emily? The relationship with Toby? Her relationship with her parents, their thinking the best of her, asking about her relationship with Toby? Her deceiving them? With Toby, Sam and the others, the fight with the gang, Toby and his brutality and bashing? Meeting up with Hector? The fascination of the drug world, Hector and his friends? Alison and her decision to go to the gangs with Emily? Her meeting Hector in the shopping mall, walking with him, discussions, trying to understand, ingratiate herself? Being picked up by the police? Taken to jail, interrogations, her parents getting her out? Going again, wanting to join the gang, the dice, the sexual encounter and initiation, her backing out at the end, Emily and her experience? Their going home, Emily and her talking to the police, Alison and the discussions with Emily, Emily threatening to kill herself, the razor blades, the pills? Her calming down? Alison and her not wanting Hector to be arrested? Having to face the consequences of her actions? Telling the truth to Emily’s family? To her own family?

6. Emily, a follower, with Alison? The other friends? With Toby and the gang? The fights with the East LA gangs? At school? Going with Alison, the dice, the sexual encounter, the rape? Her going home, the police, Alison trying to tell the truth, that it wasn’t rape? The reconciliation between the two?

7. Toby, his character, on-and-off relationship with Alison? Sam, the drugs? The other members of the group? At school, the bashing of the gang? Hearing the news about Emily? Getting the guns, going down to East LA? Threatening the women with guns, their fear, their backing off, passing the gang in the street?

8. Hector, his leadership, the drugs, tough, his brother? The encounter with the Pacific Palisades young people? The interest in Alison, at the supermarket and the mall, walking with her, talking? The meeting of two worlds? The arrest, in prison? The dice, the sexual encounter with Alison, her backing out? With Emily? His arrest? The other members of the gang, the decision for revenge, going to the Pacific Palisades, getting lost, the affluent houses, the police sending them back, passing Toby and the others in the car? The women in the group, in the house, their being threatened by Toby and the group?

9. The adult generation, not knowing what was happening with their children? Sense of responsibility? Discovery?

10. Eric, his film, the scenes, talking about being bored, Toby and the guns – and a parallel with what the director was doing in making this film, observing the life of teenagers in Los Angeles?