SPRING BREAKERS: Harmony Korine is the Jerry Springer of Indie Film

Calm down. It ain't what you think.

Spring Breakers

Starring Selena Gomez and James Franco

2 out of 5 Arnolds

In Spring Breakers, director Harmony Korine goes for the handheld/cinema verite/shaky-cam* approach. Its use marks one of those rare occasions where the technique makes sense in what is, arguably, a genre film. It puts the viewer directly into the jubilant, in-your-face world of Florida's spring break. It's effectively trippy, but, just like a lot of films that use this technique nowadays (I sound so old), it becomes an excuse to mask what's not there.

Ever wonder why rappers are such good actors? Could it
be because they're acting all the time?

In the film, college kids Brit, Candy, Cotty, and Faith are determined to make it to Florida for spring break. While Faith (Selena Gomez) is preoccupied with finding God, her three lady friends are plotting to rob the local diner to pay for the trip. They execute their plan with hammers and water pistols in hand, inviting Faith to throw caution to the wind and join them on their NOW all expenses paid school break.

Things get sketchier when the partying lands the girls in jail. This puts them firmly into the ice-grilled maw of "Alien" (James Franco, far more capable here than in Oz The Great and Powerful), a drug dealer who impresses most of the girls with his bling and talk of Scarface-styled turf wars.

Irony: Um...y'know that Scarface dies at the end, right?

Action A Go Go or Action A No No? I’m feeling mostly indifference here, but…Action A No No.

Similar to his film Gummo, in Spring Breakers director Harmony Korine uses his camera to focus on the trashier side of American culture. And just like Gummo, it's meant to shock you without actually saying anything.

Is Spring Breakers an examination of youth? A satire of a generation that grew up with Britney Spears? Or just a low-budget exercise in excess from a filmmaker who seems most interested in fetishizing the young girls of Beach House MTV? I vote for the latter. You can pull a ton of subtext from Spring Breakers but you could do the same from the latest lushly photographed Kanye West video. The only difference is that whitebread film critics won't try to justify Kanye West.