Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, “Mid90s,” centers around 13-year-old Stevie and his skateboarding friends during the 1990s. Hill attempts to bring life to what he sees as a marginalized social group, but fails to depict the skateboarding community as anything other than preexisting stereotypes.

As the title implies, the focal point of the film rests in nostalgia for the aesthetics of the time period rather than the relationships between the characters. The film is shot on 16mm film with a 4:3 aspect ratio, giving the movie a beautiful look. This is one of the only great directorial decisions Hill made during this project. It’s reminiscent of the low-budget, direct-to-VHS skateboarding films of the 90s, and this feeling is what justifies watching the film.

Hill is quick to copy Richard Linklater’s famous style of the “hangout” film, which focuses heavily on the interpersonal conversations between characters rather than following a traditional plot. Linklater became famous for this style in the 1990s with films such as “Dazed and Confused,” “Slacker” and “Before Sunrise,” so it’s no surprise that Hill would want to follow suit.

However, despite using Linklater’s style, Hill struggles to write dialogue that convinces the audience of the relationships between the characters. The first half of the film barely manages to convincingly connect the characters in any way, and in the second half, Hill tries too hard to force the characters into conversations that do not reflect the relationships he attempted to create in the first.

Hill’s characters are probably the most irritating aspect of his film. It becomes obvious early on that Hill is genuinely attempting to give this demographic a voice in the film. However, Hill does so by depicting each character in the most cliché way possible. Each character feels stolen right off the screen of other, more complete films. Hill’s screenplay just doesn’t fit with the characters or time period he is attempting to convey.

Hill’s filmmaking naiveté also comes into play with his lack of ability to utilize the brilliant acting range of Lucas Hedges, who plays Ian. Hedges has started to make a name for himself and has had some of the greatest performances in recent memory with his work in “Manchester by the Sea,” “Lady Bird,” “Boy Erased” and “Ben is Back.” However, Hill failed to give the rising star another brilliant performance as he heavily underutilized Hedges’ acting range.

As this is Hill’s directorial debut, it’s no surprise that the film really struggles to say anything new about this time period or the skateboarding movement. To be fair to Hill, there are far more experienced filmmakers who have also depicted the LA skateboarding scene, so he was coming up against heavy competition. Some credit should be given to Hill for attempting this project, but if you’re looking for a great skateboarding movie, stick with films by more experienced filmmakers, such as Catherine Hardwicke’s “Lords of Dogtown.”

Directed by Paul Greengrass, 22 July is a docudrama based around the right-wing terrorist attack on July, 22, 2011 on the Norwegian island of Utøya. Greengrass takes on the difficult task of adapting such an intense event, and unfortunately he does not effectively translate these events on to the screen.

Other than his work in the Bourne franchise, Greengrass has based much of his career in film around the adaptation of somber, non-fiction events. With most of his films, such as Captain Phillips or United 93, he focuses on a specific person or a group of people that are victims of a terrorist attack. The effects of true-story cinema are extremely limited, but filming from this perspective gives the film some ability to connect the audience with the victims. However, Greengrass decides to deviate from this style in 22 July.

Rather than focusing on the actual event, a majority of the film takes place in the aftermath of the attack. The film jumps back and forth between the trail of Anders Behring Breivik, the terrorist, and the recovery of Viljar Hanssen, one of the survivors. The cutting between each of these different story lines is emotionally jarring for the audience and doesn’t allow the proper depth of the characters to form.

Oddly enough, the main story line in the film doesn’t seem to be the recovery of Hanssen, but the interviews and subsequent trial of Breivik. This emphasis of Breivik seems counter-intuitive. Throughout the interviews, Breivik claims many times that he wants people to know his motive for the attack was rooted in deep right-wing, anti-immigration sentiments. By spending much of the film’s runtime on the character development of Breivik, Greengrass is essentially giving Breivik the publicity that he was so desperately desiring in the first place.

Even with this hyper-focus on the character development of Breivik, he’s still not developed enough past his political motivations. Greengrass puts such a focus of the motivations behind the attack but does not delve further into Breivik’s mind.

The plot line that seems to be given the least attention in the film is the recovery story of Hanssen as he struggles through the process of rehab. Unfortunately, Greengrass doesn’t really bother with any sort of character development in Hanssen. Simply put, Hanssen is a two-dimensional representation of all of the survivors of the attack. Once the trial of Breivik starts and Hanssen is called to testify, Hanssen is given some semblance of character motivation, but due to the lack of development throughout the rest of the film, the ending feels unearned and cliche.

Representing any attack in film is a difficult task but also an unnecessary one. The overall goal of these types of films is to bring a humanizing factor to new stories, but, in most cases, the films actually under-represent or misrepresent the victims of the attack. 22 July is no exception. The victims of the disgusting and barbaric actions of Breivik are unfortunately undermined by their misrepresentation on screen.

Rating 2.5/5

The Hate U Give, directed by George Tillman Jr., is an adaptation of the novel of the same name written by Angie Thomas. The film is rooted deep in cultural relevance, and the message it portrays is an important one. However, the film’s message is overshadowed by the inability to connect its audience with its characters and the lack of maturity in its approach to its source material.

The film revolves around the aftermath of a black teenager killed by a white police officer. With such an important topic, the tone of the film should match the importance of the issue. However, Tillman failed to mirror the complexity of the issue onto the screen. Most of this film plays out more like a teenage melodrama than a societal critique. It focuses more on the drama between the characters rather than the issue itself. And when the film address the social issues at hand, the issues are vastly oversimplified.

The film opens with the over-explanatory narration that is included in nearly every film intended for high schoolers. Even this early on in the film, the complex and important message had already started to become lost in its attempt to cater toward a younger audience. There is nothing wrong with attempting to convey the complex issue of racism to a younger audience, but the core message is lost in the process.

In this film, Tillman’s main focus is on the interactions between the characters, but he fails to provide any sort of dimension to the characters. In fact, in many scenes, the motivations and the actions of the characters feel more in line with the melodrama genre norms than the overall direction of the film. The characters depicted are void of the humanity that the film is rooted in. The film wants to break down racial stereotypes but plays into them in an attempt to convey its message.

The main character of the film, Starr Carter, is played by rising actress Amandla Stenberg. Stenberg’s performance in the film is actually quite good considering her lack of character development. Starr is a high school girl from a low-income, predominantly African-American community but she attends high school at a predominately white preparatory school. Stenberg plays a believable code-switching teenager, and the scenes with her interactions with her classmates are the most realistic scenes of the film.

Other than Stenberg’s, the performance of the cast is pretty lackluster. This poor performance is in no way due to the lack of quality in the supporting cast. Regina Hall, who plays Starr’s mother in the film, is heavily underutilized. Her performance is forgettable as none of her dialogue adds anything to the film.

But by far the most surprising of the underwhelming supporting cast is Anthony Mackie. His performance is incredibly sub-par compared to the ability shown in his work in other films. Mackie plays a brooding gang leader and is attempting to portray himself as an imposing figure. His performance falls miles short of believable, and most of the scenes his character is involved in are laughable.

Ultimately, the failure of this work rests of the shoulders of Tillman, who fails to bring the characters of the film any sort of life past the two-dimensional stereotypes presented. In the hands of a more experienced director, this film could have presented its message to a younger audience without losing the complexities that live at its core.

This message is one that needs to be portrayed on the theater screen and one that needs to reach young people in its audience. However, The Hate U Give loses its message in the attempt to speak to that younger audience.

Rating: 2/5