2/5 Just had something missing...
  by Steve Kuehl (Ben Lomond, CA)
Ordered this on the premise of Mila Kunis possibly carrying a film, and they were advertising this as the "unrated" version. But in the end, you are left with feeling disappointment and watching bad storytelling.

Mila plays a troubled young lady who is sent to an island work camp by her parents. The isolated layout of this camp in Fiji could make for a beautiful filming location, but it really only gets used once or twice (coral, white sand beaches, etc.). Peter Stormare (I always remember him the most as Satan in Constantine) fills the role as the camp creator and leader of this paramilitary counseling group. The idiot boyfriend who finds a way to get himself committed to the same camp (yeah right) is played by Gregory Smith (he has a much better role in Closing the Ring).

As more unlikely events occur and an intermittent writing mess unfolds in virtually every scene, the movie strives to falter. Mila tried very hard here, and I have to give her props for taking a somewhat different role. There are plenty of important themes attempted here, including the topics of physical abuses and illegal activities that occur at these camps, but the short paragraph statement in the credits is all we are given as an extra. No supplements. The sound was average as was the picture quality. Regarding the unrated quip, everything that could give it an R happens off camera or is edited out (Mila's shower scenes and abuses towards one female character). Almost feels like a made for TV movie, but even then so much is not explained or elaborated on, that it misses the mark on being an informative film. It becomes more of a brief passion piece film about these camps.



3/5 Three movies in one that should really be starring Regine Nehy!
  by Olaf Johnson (Anchorage, AK 99505)
This is three different movies in one. The first part is bad, second part is interesting, the ending is great. Between the bad and interesting bit the movie gains credibility. Between the interesting and great part there is a really tough scene that doesn't really define the movie at all, but it is a tough scene that comes out of nowhere, slaps your morality in the face and propels this movie from campy-seen-before to something mature and life defining. This for me is where the movie starts.

That said, it isn't a completely bad movie nor is it a completely good movie. What would have made this movie better was the execution (maybe do it with a flashback syle narration)and most likely using different actors. I think the cast of Twilight would have been better in this movie because those adult-playing-kids are genuises at playing somber, downtrodden, spoilt teens.
I didn't like Mila Kunis in this. Her character is drawn out too one dimensional. She is totally miscasted and out acted by even the one line characters. Stock and background characters seem to have more dimesions that the main character that Mila is playing. I think Mila was told to just be a bratty, slick, angry-youth-in-rebellion from minute one of the first shoot to the last outtake.

If anything Regine Nehy should have been the star since her character is what propels the movie towards the end-and her character develops richly and credibly in front of us. Either that or Mila should have played that character and remain the star. Mila's character, as you will find out after watching this, is totally irrevelant in every way for the success or failure of this movie. In other words the movie would've went on as a complete movie without her character in it.

Said and done, this is an entertaining movie that will either be praised or boo'ed by everyone with no one that will want to be on the fence about it.

Even so everyone hating or liking it must agree that it is a very entertaining movie and that is only where this flick succeeds!

5/5 A Boot In The Rear; Not Campy At All!
  by Jelly Jar (Collinsville, IL USA)
This little gem took me by surprise! Initially, I just wanted to watch a movie with Mila Kunis in it to see why she was basically the only one (except for Ashton Kutcher on a smaller scale) who has made the successful transition from That 70's Show to the movies...my guess is that TV to the big screen a very hard thing to do...considering notable past attempts and failures. Anyway, the first thing I was greeted with in Boot Camp was not only one transitional actress, but a transitional actor as well...Gregory Smith of Everwood (an exceptional and believable actor in his own right)...and a well put together movie as well. I have been aware of these "Tough Love" boot camps for many years now, and I am certain that what goes on in Boot Camp is what goes on in some of them to a degree but not ALL of them. I'm sure that many of these camps, although rigid in their ways, are also successful in what they are trying to get across to troubled teens.

Anyway, back to the movie itself. This is a chilling, edge-of-your seat tale that just never lets up, and it was well-acted on ALL accounts. I had the thought on two separate occasions during the movie that I didn't want it to end. I loved some of the characters, and I hated others. The movies sucks you in and doesn't let up. Well-written, well-directed, well-produced, and filmed with a gorgeous backdrop...Boot Camp delivers from start to finish. KUDOS to all involved!

STAR RATING - Five Stars

3/5 Ok, Not Great
  by The Tao of Netflix (Washington, DC)
In short, this movie tells the allegedly true story of the practice of sending troubled young adults to behavioral rehabilitative facilities in areas well beyond US jurisdictional long arm reaches (e.g., Fiji). The movie leads in with an ominous, yet ambiguous, reference to the "general" truthfulness of this movie, which would lend a discriminating viewer to conclude that some story was written in some obscure publication attesting to 10% of the veracity of the facts alleged as true in this movie. For all I know, the movie represents a 100% replication of reality, albeit in an ultra circumscribed, limited way. So to continue the story, a few young individuals provide sufficiently uncooperative to their parental figures that these parental figures decide to avail themselves of a behavioral correctional facility conveniently locacated just beyond US jurisdictional reaches, with the hope that this facility will provide the necessary hard love to rehabilitate their otherwise wayward young ones, and thereby permit their successful reintroduction to society. ****SPOILER ALERT**** - the movie, in a nearly affront to modern predictive sensibilities, decides to position a female in this red corrective camp, who happens to have a devoted love interest male that finds a way to insinuate himself into the student/prisoner population. Obviously these two eventually reconnect and conspire to leave on their own terms.SPOILER OVER***

Unfortunately, the movie fails. First, the group director, a somewhat fuzzily self proclaimed psychologist type is so well known for his laconically communicated "unguent" and nearly sole line in Fargo that he is too typecasted to be realistically accepted as a legitimate behavioral correctionist type, regardless of whether he's an MD, PhD or MS. He's just unbelievable. His germanic command of the English language is just too far attenuated to make this otherwise should-be-compelling antagonist compelling. Second, while the movie portrays this remote compound as a nearly completely hidden from US public view scrutiny concept, one of the primary character's male love interest finds a way to get himself involuntarily relocated to this camp, with a population of about 50 kids. Sure. So an obvious deduction from irreverential recitation of the facts is an allusion to a clear discontinuity between the literal unfolding of the story and the expected unfolding of the story. In other words, the movie is insultingly obvious; not much is left to viewer interpretation, and the viewer is left little opportunity to interpret. The story is pretty obvious in an uninspiring way. The only redeeming quality is that the production values are quite high; photography quality, camera work (e.g., lighting), and other technical factors are quite high. So while the movie represents little more than the forced spoon feeding of a predictable story, at least the visual depiction thereof is passable. Further, readers of this review should know that I rented this flick because of my south pacific obsession, hoping that its' cinematography would appeal to my local fascination. Let down. This movie could have been filmed on the beaches of Lake Erie with a few conveniently planted palm trees (which obviously would have quickly died thanks to the profusion of local water-borne industrial poisons, nevermind the continual cloud cover). So don't hope for a fun movie-transport to happier places. In short, overly predictable story line with what happens to be acceptable ok acting and surprisingly ok cinematography.

5/5 Good movie
  by Lee J. Ridgard (Chesterfield, England)
I got this about a year ago from Amazons German site its a good film well worth the watch.
If these sorts of places depicted in this movie are really like then then then it is quite scary to watch.
5/5