"Nerve" review

There's a lot to like about Nerve, especially its two leads. Emma Roberts and Dave Franco carry the film with equally charming performances. It's fun spending time with them as they drive around New York performing outrageous dares for money and anonymous viewers on Nerve, an online truth or dare game without the truth. The players with the most viewers make it into the final round and earn a chance at winning Nerve.

It might sound crazy, but Nerve actually provides some relevant insight into the underworld of online stunt bating wherein online personalities perform stunts of varying insanity in order to amass followers and celebrity (Don't believe me? After seeing the film, I found this article: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/graphic-video-indiana-man-shoots-face-fun-article-1.2725625) It's a popular occurrence that nobody ever talks about so it's nice to see it brought to light in a film.

In fact, Directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost made a career out of shining the light on popular online occurrences that nobody talks about. Their film Catfish documents the phenomenon, now known as "Catfishing," where people create fake social media accounts in order to hook up with unsuspecting victims. This is so popular, in fact, that the film spawned a television series documenting similar incidences all across America.

Schulman and Joost also have experience crafting nail-biting thrillers. Their work on the third and fourth Paranormal Activity movies can be felt during a few tense scenes that will have you gripping the edge of your seat. One scene in particular involves a drunk girl, a ladder, and her misguided attempt to make it into the final round of Nerve.

Rob Simmonds' also deserves cred for his composition of the film's hypnotic electro-score. It perfectly melds with Michael Simmonds' beautiful cinematography of New York's neon night life to realize Nerve's spellbinding ambiance.

For as much as there is to like about all these things, Nerve has a lot of writing issues. The entire mythology behind the Nerve gameshow isn't much explained and leaves a lot of basic questions unanswered: Is this game based only in New York? Where does the money you win for completing dares come from? What do you actually earn for winning the entire game?

The truly bad writing rears its ugly head once the lousy third act hits. Any previous tension is immediately and laughably killed off for the sake of wrapping everything up in a nice bow. You're left feeling like an idiot as unexplained plotlines reveal themselves and you're simply supposed to accept them no questions asked. It's enough to leave a bad taste in your mouth about the rest of the film, especially if you don't reflect on it as a whole later.

After my own reflecting (and a lot more about this film than originally planned), I've realized I enjoyed this film; however, I cannot recommend it for the price of admission simply based on the tragic fall off at the end, but it's definitely worth a look once it hits VOD.