Crime & Punishment in Suburbia

http://imdb.com/title/tt0197384/

It's been awhile since I saw a movie I liked as much as this one. It's one of the benefits of the Blockbuster movie pass - instead of feeling like I'm taking a chance with my four bucks on a movie that may be awful, I can rent movies about which I know nothing and if they are awful, just run back over to the store and get something else. I was skeptical that this would be very good, and the IMDB rating of 5.7 isn't in the realm of where I would have expected much.

But instead, I think this one was well acted and contained enough in the way of interesting characters that I was hooked in quickly and cared about what happened to them. Most interesting is the character of Vincent, played by Vincent Kartheiser. He has some cliche elements of the stalker freak at the high school who follows around his favorite girl and takes her picture from the shadows and occasionally does odd things like offer her a necklace of garlic in the middle of science class. But where such a character would normally be the classic "goth", in ever scene he's smiling as though all of life entertains him. He's also the only character in the movie with a strong sense of morality and unlike so many Hollywood heroes, his morality is even allowed to come from basic Christian beliefs.

Also intriguing about the movie is that every character, no matter how far they fall, they have redeeming qualities. Even the step-father, played by Michael Ironside, who commits one of the worst acts in the story, has moments of peace where you think he need not have turned out so bad.