The Dirties

Director/co-writer/star Matt Johnson blurs fact and fiction in this disconcerting faux high-school documentary that was made among real students at several Canadian establishments. The presence of an unexplained camera operator confuses the issue slightly, but it also adds to the sense of growing unease as bullying victims Johnson and Owen Williams (playing characters with the same first names) decide to make a vérité account of their victimisation that will culminate in the pair taking vicious revenge on "the dirties". Despite the copious references to Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects and Elephant, Johnson stresses that violent films don't create psychopaths, though they do provide reference points to the steps that will eventually tip them over the edge. Jared Raab's camerawork is suitably jerky and Johnson often seems to be riffing more on Jean-Luc Godard than Quentin Tarantino. But, for all its black comedic bravura, this is a touch too self-conscious to amuse, provoke or convince.