The Bling Ring Reviews

Coppola adopts an interesting neutral approach to this ironic and witty story of glamour and celebrity culture, never pointing fingers or trying to understand her characters but just taking a wry look at the empty lives of a bunch of shallow, selfish and spoiled teenagers.

Living the Dream, One Heist at a Time.

Good movie! Sofia Coppola gets it, she gets this social media generation. In her latest film The Bling Ring, Coppola gives us a vibrant portrait of a society thats culture is so lost it's hard to decide who you hate more; wannabes or celebrities. I loved the way this film was shot. It's interesting, the way we view these characters is almost in the background, as if we the audience are in fact the surveillance camera we remain distant from the people on screen not understanding what drives them or even feeling the thrill of robberies. Emma Watson is fantastic. The way she portrays Nicki's vacant need to fulfill her meaningless desires was striking and the accent and voice inflections made the performance all the more impressive. Besides Emma, most of the other girls are forgettable which I enjoyed; at times you can confuse them with one another because they try so hard to be the same style of person.

Overall I really enjoyed the film. The entire thing feels like this giant master plan that will need multiple viewing to take in everything Coppola was trying to say. While not as surprising as I thought it was going to be the themes explored near the end of the film were worth the fabulously detailed ride we knew to expect from the trailer. The Bling Ring is a unique social commentary, which on the surface layer is bound to be compared to Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, both giving us their take on sociopathic young teens. Where the films differ thematically is the interesting part. You'll have to figure that one out on your own.

Inspired by actual events, a group of fame-obsessed teenagers use the internet to track celebrities' whereabouts in order to rob their homes.

The Bling Ring looked quite good by the look of the trailers. Unfortunately it only ends up being a decent movie with a good cast of actors. I really wanted to enjoy it a lot more than I did, as the subject is quite interesting, but in the end leaves a lot to be desired and you realize that the film had the potential of being much better than what it turned out to be. The story concerns teens that have broken into the houses of celebrities and steal their expensive belongings. They end up stealing millions of dollars worth of stuff, and it becomes an obsession with them to raid the houses of celebrities and commit crimes against them. They commit crimes against some celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Really no one cares about anymore. The story is interesting, but it should have been done a bit better. I liked the film, but I really expected someone much more elaborate than this. The Bling Ring is a watchable movie, but it's nothing ever memorable. It's a fun one at that, if you can get past its flaws. Emma Watson stars, and she gives a good performance here, but it's nowhere near her performances in the Harry Potter films or Perks of Being a Wallflower. However I must admit, at least she's able to execute something very different in each of her movies, so she doesn't get typecast. I enjoyed the film, but it's simply a decent one at best and you can just imagine how good the film could have been if the script would have been reworked. With a plot like this, it could have been something truly special. However, the filmmakers made a film that fell short of its potential. Worth seeing, but don't have high hope for it.

Main problem with this is that there is no depth to the characters. I couldn't tell one from the other. Shallow little rich girls breaking into celebrities homes and stealing stuff. No back stories or anything to make you feel anything at all for any of them. Maybe the guy I felt sorry for at the end. That's about it.
The film looks nice and the celebrity homes were interesting. Not sure if they were real or not. Apparently Paris's was? I did like her little nightclub room.

four stars

I'm usually a fan of Sofia Coppola's indie slow burn, but "The Bling Ring" is a surprisingly bland pop confection that isn't nearly as satisfying as a celebrity pantie raid should be. The points of view are unbalanced; it's unclear which member(s) of the group we're supposed to identify, if not empathize with. The bookend interviews of Emma Watson's Nicki are interesting at the beginning but confusing by the end. What IS her real/fake story? There's also a pretty big real life detail that this "based on a true story" ignores: none of the celebrities actually noticed that their property was missing; Marc started losing it due to anxiety and tattled on himself and the ring, which then led to all of them confessing to these unreported crimes instead of plea bargaining. These omitted details say more about our culture of excess, crime not paying, consequences of being a stupid criminal, than the movie does. It would have made a stronger critical or satirical thesis for this well-directed music video (burnliment!).

Now, let's talk about the acting from this cast of beautiful young adults, which generated much of the buzz in my estimation. Katie Chang, as the ringleader Rebecca, has a rare blend of nice non-threatening lobotomized demeanor and luminous, slow-motion beauty that perfectly masks the sociopathic deviant underneath.

Emma Watson is...uneven. She does SOME things great, like skank dancing, pole dancing, and wearing the hell out of those large sunglasses. Go Hermione. Her American accent is somewhat inconsistent. I rather liked the snippet from the trailer of her doing the first interview because she picked a specific dialect - that of a valley girl. Throughout the rest of the movie though, she adopts the default accentless accent, and it's not as compelling. A couple of her vapid deadpans DO hit the mark, but other times, her mean girl posturing suffers from the same restless eyebrows and pursed lips that plagued HP. Emma Watson is hella gorgeous, and she's a fantastic solo model, but her problem is that she pulls focus. She doesn't blend into the ensemble; she is always self-conscious, holding her face a certain way to make sure she looks perfect.

The scenestealer would have to be Claire Julien as the hard-partying Chloe. Her deep smoker's rasp and raccoon eyes are just nice nuances to her devil-may-care aura. Her silent mug shot sequence, which shows her simply turning from right to front to left, is amazing for her glazed and misty eyes, and the seemingly innocuous family breakfast preceding her arrest is suspenseful because of the nearing sirens, yapping dogs, and her gradual tensing as she eats her cereal.

"The Bling Ring" is some respects, is a little disappointing, but the fact that this is a true story is really what kept me interested. I accepted how easy things were to be done in the film, solely on the fact that it actually happened. The cast is decent enough to get the point across, because the acting is kind of overdone and the characteristics seem a little dated from what they used to be, which is presented well, but like I said, a bit overdone. As we follow these people through celebrity homes, that just happen to be conveniently unlocked, they steal priceless merchandise and loads of cash these celebrities have in their homes. From Paris Hilton to Kirsten Dunst, there are many nice little cameos to say that we are watching a film that takes place in California and not staged somewhere else. This film is shot on location everywhere through the Hollywood hills, and I admired that. This film is a tad slow at times, but the energy in each character and the music in the film keeps you involved every step of the way. The camera shots are very unique (that was my favourite part of the film) and the script is solid. "The Bling Ring" is nothing to write home about, but it's a solid film.

Extra character development is sacrificed at times for an excess of robbery scenes that get slightly tiresom, but ''The Bling Ring'' is a fun, well-written and insightful look into celebrity culture.

I don't know....maybe if I were 15 and had a thing for rhinestones and ostentatious carry-on luggage.

Truly a great film. Great performances--especially from Watson and Broussard--great writing, and an appropriately rousing and hip soundtrack. It is aesthetically beautiful, wonderfully crafted, and artistically directed. What makes it really memorable is not only its commentary on teen and pop culture, but its surprisingly intimate look at the life of these teenagers as well as the raw emotions we see arise in Broussard's character, making him a sympathetic and almost tragic figure.

I didn't know whether I should be laughing at these characters or loathing them, so I ended up just loathing the whole movie. Coppola attempts to portray the brutal honesty of these stupid kids making stupid decisions, which is understandable, but it just doesn't make for an engaging film. It's repetitive, annoying and distasteful, with the only redeeming value being a decent soundtrack. Devoid of a single likeable character and any true purpose, Sofia Coppola's 'The Bling Ring' has to be the worse movie I've seen so far this year.

From writer/director Sofia Coppola comes The Bling Ring, a true life crime thriller that ends up being less interesting than the actual events. The story follows a group of teenagers who robbed the homes of famous celebrities who lived in the Hollywood Hills. Unfortunately, the writing is rather poor and doesn't really develop the characters or explain what drove them to commit their crimes. The actors are able to improve on the material somewhat, but there's only so much that they can do. Unfocused and monotonous, The Bling Ring is a poorly made crime drama.

In "The Bling Ring," old friends Rebecca(Katie Chang) and Marc(Israel Broussard) are reunited when they attend the same remedial high school in Calabasas, California. So, she invites him to a party she is throwing that night with her parents out of town. And then she leaves early with Marc to 'check' expensive sports cars in the area to see if any are unlocked. After that, they move on to the house of a friend of Marc's. And then the sky is the limit, as they find out where Paris Hilton lives before inviting Nicki(Emma Watson), Chloe(Claire Julien) and Sam(Taissa Farmiga) to join them.

In its own modest, matter of fact and droll way, "The Bling Ring" takes fine aim at the current state of fame, as seen through a fun house mirror. What everybody has in common in the movie is that none of them are exactly deserving. At least, the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are used to and know they are being watched which the same cannot be said of the wannabe criminals here. Along these same lines, the best parts of the movie are when Sofia Coppola just lets her camera watch the protagonists, especially one extended single take of a robbery. All of which results from a perfect storm that that involves Rebecca who has no impulse control and a decent amount of charisma, Marc who has little self-esteem and may be on his way to being transgender(if the shoes fit...), along with any other acolytes who are drawn to fame like flies to a flame, and finally proximity to celebrity being the secret ingredient.

Marc (Broussard), a gay teen with self-image issues, moves to a high-school for troubled students where he is befriended by the sociopathic Rebecca (Chang). After leaving a party, Rebecca demonstrates to Marc how easy it is to steal from the residents of the Hollywood Hills, who seem to leave their cars unlocked. Marc is apprehensive at first, but when Rebecca shows him how much "stuff" they can purchase with stolen money, he happily goes along with her kleptomaniac antics. When the pair discover Paris Hilton is out of town, they look up her address on the internet and break into her lavish home. This technique is employed again and again to burgle celebrity homes and soon, a group of Rebecca and Marc's friends join in their criminal antics, becoming known in the media as "The Bling Ring".
Hot on the designer heels of 'Spring Breakers' comes another tale of teen girls gone wild, this one based on true events. While Harmony Korine got across his critique of middle-class entitlement and the subversion of the American dream, Coppola struggles to, preferring to sit on an authorial fence. It's clear the director doesn't want us to empathize with her young protagonists, save for Marc, but this creates a coldness to her film which never allows us to feel truly involved. The traditional crime movie structure, (established in the Warner Brothers gangster flicks of the thirties), makes the lifestyle appear exciting and enticing before reality kicks in as the protagonist finds themselves out of depth in the third and final act. Coppola follows this template but fails to create any sense of excitement in the act of carrying out the crimes in question. This, of course, could be down to my being a thirty-something male who thinks Gucci is a bloke who plays right-back for AC Milan. A fashion obsessed teen may find themselves wrapped up in the film's events but scene after scene of a bunch of annoying valley girls touring celeb homes quickly became repetitive for this reviewer. Coppola spends far too much time on these sequences. I would estimate half the film's running time is spent on the burglaries themselves, many of which could have been covered in a montage.
One of these sequences is handled brilliantly, however, as Coppola places her camera outside the victim's home in an extreme wide shot, allowing us to observe the young burglars act out their crime, like pet gerbils negotiating a cage. Aesthetically, the film is a triumph, with Coppola seemingly influenced by the night-time neon style of Michael Mann. (A piece from Klaus Schulz' score for 'Manhunter' even finds its way into the film but only serves to remind you how much better a film Mann's is).

One feature which really bothered me was the use of a night-club which the teens frequent in order to celeb-spot. I've had personal experience of California's draconian enforcement of its Over-21 drinking law so I find it hard to believe that these girls would be allowed into such a club, and even harder to believe that celebs would wish to be associated with a venue frequented by underage drinkers.
'The Bling Ring' could have been 'Clueless' meets 'GoodFellas'. Instead it's a film ultimately as vacuous as its protagonists.

It always looks pretty, and it deserves credit for that, but The Bling Ring tends to value style over substance by just throwing flat and annoying characters into a series of parties and home break-ins and hoping that it will seem insightful. Because of its distinct lack of focus and plot advancement, it ultimately fails to provide an engaging look at our celebrity-obsessed culture. Definitely one of Sofia Coppolla's weaker films.

"It's time to try your luck again, but remember what I say: it's gotta be the bling ring for that lady!" Yeah, Kingston Wall, as progressive rock, could have been a worse '90s band, but they should have probably stuck to Finnish, as their English lyrics weren't particularly sharp, which isn't to say that I'm ashamed about referencing "The Real Thing", because even though it's a '90s song, it fits in this discussion... I think, seeing as how I kind of like to mess with people by referencing an 18-minute-long, actually good post-'80s song that they've never heard of (I guess prog rock still has "the real thing... for that lady"). Yeah, it was a lame move, but you have to give me credit for not having any pretense about my intentions with that reference, especially seeing as how this film has enough pretense going for it on its own, or at least about as much as it can while still being an almost tasteful approach to almost tasteless subject matter. It's "Spring Breakers 2", already, because, you know, as if it wasn't enough that "Spring Breakers" defiled the family-friendly images of Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Benson, Sofia Coppola just had to come in and push Hermione Granger into sleazy waters, all but ruining her for "Harry Potter" fans. Oh yeah, because the last thing that "Harry Potter" fans want to see now that they're between their mid-teens and mid-20s is Emma Watson strutting around in the tightest of jeans, dirty dancing and licking her I suppose adequately pronounced lips. As a fan of brunettes, I can at least give this film credit for getting Watson to dye her hair and enjoy her Venice vacation by a pool that the trusty paparazzi happened to be standing by, and if you think that sounds kind of weird, well, first off, you clearly haven't seen the leg-tastic pool side pictures to which I am referring, and secondly, you should see this film. Yeah, this is a pretty sleazy flick, though it's not as exciting as you might think, which isn't to say that it is, in fact, "Spring Breakers 2" (No, James Franco, I most definitely do not want Spring Break forever, at least after that film), as it has its share of graces to save it from contempt.

Looking through the low-brow subject matter around which this drama is built and seeing a name like that of Sofia Coppola, it's easy to expect some form of artistry, and if commendable artistry is here, then it's within Christopher Blauvelt's and Harris Savides' surprisingly outstanding cinematography, whose coloring's cold polish is strikingly unique, especially when it glamourizes highlights in lighting control. Outside of the cinematography, stylish attempts at compensating for substance shortcomings are pretty lacking, but the film's visual style really is something to behold at times, for although you kind of get used to it after a while, it's certainly more tasteful than the substance, which, even then, has a bit of intrigue to it. As I'll touch more upon later, the film's story concept is pretty thin, and anchored by unlikable characters, yet there's something to this subject matter dealing with the full dark depths of polished, but sleazy people, having some thematic weight that proves to be thought-provoking, at least in concept, and is occasionally brought to life in execution by convincing performances. Okay, perhaps there are some questionable performances that are anything but all that convincing, but on the whole, if the core of this character "drama" has nothing else going for it, it's good performances, with Emma Watson stealing the show with an impeccable valley girl accent and portrayal of a misguidedly foolish trophy child who stands as yet another successful counteraction to Watson's Hermione Granger image, while leads Israel Broussard and Katie Chang convince as questionable leads. The performances are too underwritten to be all that strong, but they're good, and for a film like this, that's precious, as there are few strengths to this effort that has many flaws, whose severity could very well has destroyed the final product if it wasn't for the ultimate saving grace: the final product's simply being too bland to be bad. Sure, I'd imagine Sofia Coppola would want more than just a lack of interesting elements to prevent her vision from slipping into contempt, but make no mistake, there's only so much to this film, and such thinness emphasizes strengths like the cinematography and acting, whose consistency ultimately saves the film as, at the very least, mediocre. Of course, mediocrity is by no means a real compliment, because even though the film isn't quite a downright challenge to sit through, it's a forgettable, needless mess that meets what strengths it has with many missteps, even in the story concept.

As I said earlier, there is a hint of refreshing thematic intrigue to this drama, but really, outside of that, there's hardly anything to this story concept, whose conflict is relatively thin, and whose focus is even thinner, to the point of offering considerable underdevelopment, which would be a bigger deal if any amount of expository depth could compensate for the unlikability of the shallow, stupid and even criminal protagonists who stand at the core of this character study. Sure, the repulsiveness of the characters is purposeful, and the portrayals are generally strong enough to sell the thematic core of this questionable character drama, but a story this distancingly thin in weight cannot afford to have such distancing characters, as they emphasize narrative shortcomings, though not as much as the dragging that gives you more than enough time to meditate upon where things go oh so very wrong. At approximately 90 minutes, this is by no means a terribly long film, yet it still finds time to drag its feet a whole, whole lot, having a few long stretches of repetitiously excess material that break up relatively near-sprawling stretches of all-out filler that thin the focus of the narrative out until, after a while, it dissipates, resulting in aimlessness. The film travels in circles, having few rises and falls, as well as a thin sense of consequence that only gets thinner and thinner as things go - nay - limp along with nowhere to go, and whose shortcomings bland things up enough without an ice-cold atmosphere. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a little bit of quietness in this strangely almost artistically meditative drama if it means that they underuse this horrible, horrible, horrible soundtrack, but this film is not simply more quiet than it probably should, but too blasted quiet for its own good, drying up the air until you end up with a cold tone that bores and distances an investment that is loose enough because of all of the aimless narrative structure. Kind of like "Spring Breakers", this almost arty film tries to interpret tasteless subject matter tastefully, and while such a formula isn't too jarring, tone is still uneven, and that emphasizes the questionability within both the subject matter and the artistry, though perhaps not as much as ambition's gradually slipping into arrogance, for although Sofia Coppola's directorial performance doesn't feel quite as pretentious as the one that Harmony Korin destroyed "Spring Breakers" with, it demands a lot from you, yet doesn't pay back as much as it should. There's something frustrating about this film's wanting you to submit investment into something uncompelling, and while such frustration isn't considerable enough to drive the film into contempt, it reflects flaws, of which there are very, very many, from a thin story concept and unlikable characters, to aimlessly draggy and dully cold storytelling that leave the final product to sputter out as very mediocre, maybe even borderline contemptible.

When all of the bling has rusted over, you're left with outstanding cinematography, some intriguing thematic depth and strong performances by Emma Watson, Israel Broussard and Katie Chang to latch onto, while blandness' simply being too prominent for badness to set in truly save the final product from contempt, but through a blandly thin story concept, - anchored by unlikable leads - and aimless, unfocused storytelling, made all the more challenging by a dull, when not rather self-congratulatory tone, "The Bling Ring" falls flat as a thoroughly mediocre study on the dark core of the glamorous.

2/5 - Weak