Reviewed by Aaron Haynes

Now here's a surprise: A 2004 release that somehow manages to capture the same feel as Blake Walker films like A Delicate Mind or Individuevolve. The fact that Jake's technical aspects are a few years behind contributes to this, with horizontal angles, choppy panning and rotating, action being confined to one shot, and inconsistent voice acting that sounds like the mic keeps slowly moving away from the actor throughout the course of the movie. It also helps that most of the revelations in the last act of the film don't really clear anything up or tie into the theme of the movie in any resonant way, instead seeming to introduce new ideas simply for their own sake -- again, like A Delicate Mind or Individuevolve's final shots. I felt at first drawn in and then separated from the story as it slowly drifted towards telling the events but not emphasizing why they mattered, which is something The World Around Igby at least attempted to do. As a result, Jake is a conflicted experience, but it's definitely not a boring one.

Aside from a few cornily cosmetic bumps in the road, Jake is a surprisingly dark film. Unlike the dramas of 2001 or 2002, it doesn't rely on a dark visual style to provide most of the atmosphere -- no monotone brown walls and floors, scenes that chop off into blackness, or close angles on people's faces as a solitary tear rolls down their cheek, none of that. Jake's settings are surprisingly bright and even cheerful looking, which makes its events all the more disturbing. While the scenery is often a little sloppy and many shots are poorly angled, the contrast between the setting and the events does create a powerful if not especially unique atmosphere for the movie.

This is the kind of story not many people have enough heart to hear. When you see the chubby, effeminate new kid getting picked on and laughed at, do you turn away? help him out? join in? The plot of Jake focuses on the mentality of high school bullies, figuring out at what point a line must be drawn between loyalty to friends and doing the right thing. It's easy to say to the girl you're interested in that you wouldn't do anything cruel to the new guy, but when you've got a bunch of friends around who keep egging each other on to do worse things to the guy so everyone else will laugh, is it easy to say, "That's enough"? Would they listen to you? This is the best aspect of Jake's storyline, as Dave doesn't give the main character, Chuck, a distinct set of principles right off the bat. Chuck tolerates his friends' bullying of the new kid, John, because Mark, the alpha of the pack, gives him a ride home every day. Chuck smokes pot in his room and generally avoids thinking about the complicated problems, assuming they'll work themselves out. When things get worse and he starts to realize what's happening is wrong, he still hesitates in a lot of ways.

The nature of mob mentality is that individuality is suppressed in an attempt to gain social acceptance. Groups are formed on the strength of agreement, and members of the group have to struggle to conform to whatever gets suggested so as not to be singled out. The instant one person has a different viewpoint, they become targeted, the focus for dissent, and rather than think about what's being discussed, it become a black-and-white issue about how this person is not one of us, and must think he's better than us. This idea is the most fascinating thing about Jake, because the protagonist of the story isn't the kid who's being beat up, it's the kid who's watching it happen and rationalizing that he must have deserved it. A mob is only as smart as the stupidest loudmouth in it.

Where the story falters, however, is in it's wrap-up at the end. The revelation of who John was is foreshadowed appropriately, but when Chuck tells his girlfriend that he didn't know until afterwards, my primary thought was, "Does that really matter?" Sure, there would be a more personal reason for regret and hatred, but would the guy deserve it any less if that hadn't have been the case? The stepsister thing felt a bit tacked-on, too, because it's presented as a revelation but doesn't tie into existing plot developments in any way, instead introducing a new and rather irrelevant plot element at a very late stage in the movie, which damages the flow. And while it's satisfying to us as reasonable people that Mark suffers a retribution for his action, the movie doesn't meditate on what it means for very long -- Chuck carries out revenge for personal reasons, not because he felt that Mark was an evil person and understood what mob mentality could do to someone.

I was definitely affected by this movie, I must admit. It's flawed and technically dated, but it's powerful where it counts, in the character development. While an ultimately enjoyable experience, Jake ends far too abruptly and doesn't spend enough time thinking about itself as a whole; I didn't want it to give me the answer, but I did want it to ask the question.

Critical Score: 65/100.
Personal Score: 77/100.