Standing by Yourself

It is a horrifying and devastating spectacle of life gone dreadfully out of control, yet it is also riveting and hypnotic in such a dramatic sensation that you are left breathless by the sequence of events which will haunt and torture for as long as your memory remains intact.

In the post-Columbine era, Koury's film has its finger on something particularly potent.

Highly irritating at first, Mr. Koury's passive technique eventually begins to yield some interesting results.

Koury's harsh documentary is likely to leave you unsettled and depressed. Which is, clearly, just what it's supposed to do.

One hopes Koury will return to this interesting project to flush out the bigger story that continues to lurk just below the surface.

A crystalline curio of dumbshit nihilism shot through with fleeting pathos, Koury's home movie often evokes "The Decline of Western Civilization Part III."

It has a degree of sociological interest, but it would be more effective if the material were shaped into a more coherent form.