Nerve 2016

     This film is based on a 2012 novel by Jeanne Ryan.  Nerve is a truth or dare video game.  People sign up as players or watchers of Nerve.  There are three rules in Nerve.  All dares completed must be recorded with pictures on the player’s phone.   Earned money will be revoked if the players fails or bails from a dare.  Players must not report the game to law enforcement.  If they report all their money will be revoked.  A player can accept or decline to accomplish the dare but they will not get money.  Watchers don’t make any money but they are counted.  Venus ‘Vee’ Delmonico wants to leave her home with her single mom in Staten Island for college.  She wants to attend the California Institute of the Arts.  They don’t have the money for this school.  Vee’s friend Sydney becomes very popular in Nerve but they are entirely different personalities.  Vee is shy and reserved but Sydney is bold and popular.  Vee and Sydney have a spat and Vee is furious, she decides she will become a Nerve player. 

     This game can be very dangerous and some dares are easy but others can turn out to have irrevocable consequences.  It seems to be almost like a drug and when you start out with the easy dares, you become more empowered to move onto more complicated dares.  I’m not sure if this would be true in an actual game of Nerve but the jocks and the nerds are separated?  Jocks rule and become the players.  Nerds watch and bail out the jocks?  Everything begins to turn on a different axis when Vee’s mother Nancy starts to learn what is going on?  3 1/2* (I liked this movie) 

      

96 min, Action directed by Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman with Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, Emily Meade, Miles Heizer, Juliette Lewis, Kimiko Glenn, Marc John Jefferies, Machine Gun Kelly, Brian Marc, Ed Squires, Rightor Doyle.

Note:  Imdb 6.6 out of 10, 67% critic 67% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert Amazon 4.1* out of 5* with 868 viewers, Metacritic 58 out of 100 with 33 critics 6.6 out of 10 with 192 reviews .

Special Note:  Filmed in Jane’s Carrousel, Brooklyn Bridge Park and New York City, New York.  Directors Joost and Schulman also collaborated on the documentary Catfish of 2010 based on the Internet.  Their belief is that the Internet is neither good nor bad, it depends on the user.  The budget was $19 million and the worldwide gross was $85.2 million.  There is a Simpson’s episode with Homer willing to degrade himself for money?  Nominated for a People’s Choice Award for Favorite Thriller Movie January 18, 2017.  There is another film with the same title from 2013.