All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

Cast of Characters:

Mandy Lane - Amber Heard

Emmet - Michael Welch

Chloe - Whitney Able

Bird - Edwin Hodge

Red - Aaron Himelstein

Jake - Luke Grimes

Marlin - Melissa Price

Dylan - Adam Powell

Aunt Jo - Peyton Hayslip

Cousin Jen - Brooke Bloom

Keg Trucker - Robert Earl Keen

Garth - Anson Mount

Director - Jonathan Levine

Screenplay - Jacob Forman

Rated R for strong disturbing violence, pervasive drug and alcohol use, sexuality/nudity and language - all involving teens

      Amber Heard stars in the slasher flick All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. Well, tell me then, if everyone supposedly loves her so much, why didn't it get released here in America until 7 years after it was made, huh?

      Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) is the most talked about high school girl amongst all the boys... and by that, I mean they wanna sleep with her. Too bad for all the hormone raging boys, she's harder to get inside of than Fort Knox. Red (Aaron Himelstein) keeps his fingers crossed though when he invites her and a group of friends over to his father's ranch for a party. The friends are Jake (Luke Grimes) - the dickhead, Jake's girl Marlin (Melissa Price) - the slut, Chloe (Whitney Able) - hey, another slut, and Bird (Edwin Hodge) - the token black guy.

      They show up at the ranch and despite the fact they're being "supervised" by ranch hand Garth (Anson Mount), these things are bound to happen: underage drinking will occur, there will be sex in a barn at some point, the dickhead will treat his girl like shit 'cause... well, he's a dickhead, oh, and people will die. Oh, so that's why the release date got postponed forever.

      As mentioned up above, despite being released here in 2013, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane was first conceived in 2003 and filmed in 2006. Due to the poor box office performance of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse films (which, I don't care what anyone says, I loved, but it still didn't make money), the Weinstein Company pulled the plug on it and sold the film to Senator Entertainment US... which went out of business. After a few more years of waiting in film distribution hell, it finally got its release this year, and I gotta tell you, this film could've been postponed for another 7 years for all I care. It it a terrible film? Well, it could've. The writing is weak, predictable and uses all of the cliche slasher film setups that we've seen hundreds - no thousands - no millions of times before and quite frankly I've grown sick and tired of. For example, we once again get the couple that fight and split, which leads to one of them dying and of course, a film like this can't do without that ranch hand that stands back in the distance with that silent stare and makes you think "Oh, yeah, he's definitely the killer 'cause he's got that cold, silent stare going on.", but then you end up just being dead wrong. For whatever reason, they keep the killer's identity a secret 'til the final act, a poor move on the writer and director's part considering I had the identity figured out in the first act, and wow, I was right! Would just having the killer's identity revealed from the get-go have made this a great film? No, but it would've been one less criticism. What keeps this film from being terrible? That would be the lovely Amber Heard (weird seeing her in a movie this year where she looks so young, but we're all about to see just how "grown up" she's gotten in Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills tomorrow) and more importantly, the fact that it's actually made pretty well. Heard has a terrific screen presence and I'm not just saying that 'cause she's obviously gorgeous. I'm still convinced she can act. The problem is she keeps picking movies that are crap. She does what she can here, but there's not much for her to work with anyway. Seriously, Amber, there's nothing wrong with being a little selective. Just 'cause you were in Drive Angry with Nicolas Cage, doesn't mean you have to be like him in picking every single script that comes flying your way. Director Jonathan Levine and cinematographer Darren Genet provide some nice touches to the film. From a technical standpoint, it looks great. The story and the writing is just so flat and the whole time I was wondering what exactly had Levine drawn to this? Earlier this year, he wrote and directed the quirky and funny film Warm Bodies and before that directed 50/50, which showcased both Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen in some of their best work, if not their best. Levine is a solid director and he does what he can with such a conventional horror story, but he can do so much better.

      While not horrible, it's still not quite worth the time either. It's very well made and I really enjoyed how it looked, but a nice and shiny, polished turd is still a turd. If you are interested in seeing it, On Demand already has it and it'll be in limited theatrical release starting tomorrow, but in all honesty, you'd be better off renting either 50/50 or Warm Bodies by Levine instead. I give All the Boys Love Mandy Lane a C- (★★).