"They did it because they were evil" isn't necessarily a bad motivation for a villain, but it's an awful motivation for a school-shooting set in reality.

“Don’t focus on the difficult upbringings of the shooter” is an interesting statement coming from the people who want desperately want to focus on mental health rather than gun control

I cracked up at "Instead of starting a KZfaq channel where he complains about women in Star Wars". Perfectly nailed the demographic.

“God allows the wicked to do their wickedness… so they can be judged.” So God sits back and lets children die so he can tell the person who killed them it was bad. Great argument, buddy

My man, I shuddered when the director claimed that the movie was 'escapism.'

Ben: this movie is to START a conversation! Jose: why those teens have all those guns? where did they get them??? Ben:...no!

Let's be real the main villain's motivation was that he got cancelled on twitter for calling someone a slur. Hence the whole bit on "judge and jury, ooo I'm the executioner" type shit.

27:24 Matthew Walsh,a dumb slasher film or a movie about a bear on cocaine is escapism but you seem to forget that THIS MOVIE IS EVERY HIGHSCHOOL STUDENTS FEAR. You can say it’s escapism because you never have to step foot into a school again but for dozens of parents THIS IS MAKING A MOCKERY OF THE WAY THEIR CHILD DIED (Sorry If I phrased it poorly just needed to say this)

Imagine describing a series as “edgy” and “won’t mock your values” in the same sentence

For a group of guys who presumably “hate” Hollywood Elites - they sure do go through a lot of effort to exactly emulate those elites. Down to the red carpet and tuxedos 🤣

You know, I remember that one time when they made a safety drill in my school. I have arrived a bit late when they made the announcement so it took me by surprise. People even took me for a schoo shooter because of that. This experiment took me to a huge roller coaster of emotions that I ended up breaking in tears since I realized shortly that I would be one of the victims if that were true. This was a simulation but the what I've been though would have been more realistic than this movie.

Art is about exploring new ideas no wonder there aren't many successful conservatives in the art world

The fact that we have this movie but not “Cool Cat Stops a School Shooting” is very disappointing.

When I saw her aim at the boy in the orange cap without seeing his face, my initial thought was that she's going to shoot an innocent boy that she mistakes for the schoolshooter. But that ofc would be too profound a move for such a movie to do.

The ending just shows the daily wire never thought of this from the perspective of someone who would be involved in this. The ending is framed as the positive end to the power fantasy when in reality it’s a person ignoring the tens of more trained and less injured officers to instead go kill the bad guy herself in quite a sadistic way, while also being quite legally dubious and extra judicial. Had it been handled by someone else, the ending could be quite good and a view of trauma and it’s affects on people and their views on morality, instead we’re supposed to see an act of sadism as a good thing because it happened to a bad person. It’s quite telling that this is the way the daily wire handled it

"We need to treat them as the villains they are, It can't be all about their tough childhoods [...] or the crippling circumstances they went through..." Or how they may or may not have been inspired by right wing demagogues such as yourself, to the point of listing you by name in their manifesto.

In school teachers weren't supposed to tell us when shooters drills were happening but they always would because otherwise we genuinely believed it was going to be the day we died. The idea of anyone using that scenario for "escapism" feels so gross

Ben is just never going to let go of the fact Hollywood rejected him for being a terrible writer.

She left the school, had a vision of her dead mom and walked back unarmed whitout calling help. Dummest main charater ever.

I think it's hilarious that the Daily Wire bought the distribution rights to the movie so that nobody can ever watch it but their own subscribers. That's a sort of self-own right there.

"They put Die Hard into a school shooting" has the same amazingly powerful energy as "They did surgery on a grape."

...Did the shooter in that one scene literally say to all the other kids "this is actually your fault because you use social media"

To be fair, had this film been made in the 80s and 90s when school shootings were either rare or underreported and was set in a dystopian future, people would’ve probably praised it.

As a "mass violence/shooting" survivor and former hostage, I would reorder those as Run, Fight, Hide. Also, if you actually witnessed anything and espaced, don't immediately go home. Find the local "staging area" because various groups including the police and media will definitely want to interview/question you

"If we only take proactive action, we can avoid tragedy." "Oh, so gun control." "No, not that." "Okay, so broad, sweeping free mental health care to identify and care for at-risk persons before they commit, or are victims of, violent crime." "No, not that either." "So... Everybody learn gunkata like in Equilibrium?" "Yes! That's the ticket."

"Sometimes things are bad because they fail in what they try to achieve. Sometimes tho, they are bad because they succeed, and the thing they were trying to achieve is tasteless and stupid" -Ben "Yhatzee" Croshaw

It always amuses me when conservatives complain about movies and TV being "leftist propaganda". They're just basic morality tales that we've taught children forever (kindness to others, sharing, compassion, not judging people, not being a bigot, y'know, kid shit), it's not Hollywoods fault Conservative values are so completely at odds with being a good person🤷‍♀️

I wish they’d made the shooters left leaning. “If we had tighter gun regulations, this would be less likely to happen!”

I remember when he reviewed Parasite and he just called it "okay" or something and admitted he couldn't finish it I think. Someone like that has no business in film and he shouldn't be surprised why that industry rejected him.

These people would literally rather have children fight for their lives instead of regulating guns in any way

The whole "freedom of speech" argument from the right is just people facing consequences and claiming it's unfair. People don't want to support individuals who hold ideals they believe are abhorent or have committed horrifying actions and people not doing so harms companies who in turn may potentially not hire individuals. The right want to stop people facing consequences and whenever they have a career issue blame it on people "cancelling them" rather than their personal failures.

I went to the trailer of the original movie to leave a dislike and hate comment, and wasn’t expecting so many people praising its concept and execution. Incredibly disheartening on so many different levels

Ben saying his movie is push back against liberal Hollywood is like saying, "I'm sick of superhero movies, so watch my film. It's about a guy who gets bit by a radioactive wombat, puts on a costume and fights crime."

"That hate our Gods" Ben. Ben you're all Abrahamics, you have the same God. Unless Ben is secretly a closet polytheist and MAN what a twist that would be.

I wonder if they will apply their rock solid ideology of letting the free market speak for itself to the fact that their movie ate balls at the box office

They seriously made a movie about a school shooting with about the same moral weight as the hostages in Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Wait hang on, so their movie that is 100% against school shootings and doesn't fetishise them at all....has the actual shooter/main villain be some edgelord who repeats Daily Wire talking points like "I'm triggering you!!!!" jokes, his build a wall comment and arguing that teachers should be armed The SHOOTER is the one who agrees with the Daily Wire's world view impressive self own on their part

It's worth noting that school shooters are largely inspired or at least heavily invested in right wing ideologies. This goes back to the original shooters at Columbine, who wanted to beat Timothy Mcveigh's "score."

A movie that tackles a shooting of young people- not in a school but still very much the same kind of thing- is Utøya: July 22, in which the shooter is never even seen. Instead, the entire movie is focused exclusively on the victims, and our POV as an audience is also a girl. Shot entirely in one take, it captures the randomness of it all, some characters survive merely because the shooter failed to see them, or missed; we spend a lot of time with those who die, there is no sugarcoating how horrible everything truly is but the focus is exclusively on the victims. And while this perspective of zeroing in on the victims alone and not consider the shooter is obviously not the only one, it is a way of honoring their memory and of making sure he does not come across as "cool". Because- and I cannot for the life of me understand why- Tristan comes across as actually sexy in a bad-boy kind of way. Of course he is a caricature and Ben and co. may be surprised that I would be willing to bet good money on the fact that a lot of his audience was half-rooting for Tristan all along. As to the way in which the subject of good availability is not even touched upon in this movie: I like to remind American gun nutters that in my small country of Portugal, we have had zero school shooting. We also have strict gun laws. Now, I know this doesn't make much an impact on them but given they immediately reply with variations of "shithole country", I cannot help wondering if, in a way, it does not actually upset them more than they are willing to admit. This constant anger is...telling, to say the least. I'll take "shithole country" where I can safely go to school without having to worry about being shot dead than their sick version of 'Murica any day of the week and twice on Sundays. As an aside, I was a teen during Columbine- barely younger than the shooters themselves- and clearly remember being absolutely petrified. We discussed it between classes, "What would you do?" and if things were to happen, who would do it...? And this in a country where, again, school shooting never happened...it still bothered, worried, and stressed out for a long, long time. So I cannot even begin to imagine what this does to survivors and to every single American kid who, before setting out to school in the morning, genuinely worries, "Will I or any of my friends be shot dead today?" THAT is a tragedy that must touch...many, many, many children. But hey, if only they learned how to fight, huh? /s.

I'd just like to add this, "run, hide or fight", is specifically what you're told when they prep you for a school shooting, I was in florida schools when there was a shooting in the town over, they tell us, "run if you feel like you will be able to, hide if you can't run, fight if you must but only as a last resort." You mentioned this but I felt like adding it because it's not just some offhand thing they mention in florida schools, it's very important and is told countless times to kids.

I love how the people that liked this movie call it "real and honest" and then call it "escapism".

Who else noticed CNN is called FNN in this movie which is likely short for Fake News Network?

Die Hard set in a school shooting is so insulting seeing how this is something we still deal with and hasn't got better.

'Polytechnique' is a film i would recommend about a school (college) shooting that treats its subject matter with respect. It gives a voice to the victims, killed because of misogyny (the shooter didn't like women being accepted to an engineering school), rather than to the vague idea that guns should be in schools

So the villain literally quotes right wing talking points. They make a "conservative" movie and still accidentally make themselves the villains. Sounds about right.

"Edgy movies that won't mock your [conservative] values" is an oxymoron

It’s sad that in the States tragedies like this happen fairly regularly and then this fucking movie is like “Um, just stop it, it’s that easy! Sensible mental health policies and proper gun control? No, that’s socialist!”

Battle Royal (the book) did also a very good job of humanizing the teenagers. It's an dystopian tragedy and not a slaughter game like one would imagine, after the term "Battle Royal" got so heavily misused. It's also an easy read. The movie is fine, but the tragedy is lost if you didn't know the book. I'm actually confused about how few ppl actually read it. It's always "Hunger Games is just an worse Rip-Off of Battle Royal" and if you asked them, if they have read one of them, they say "No, i just watched Hunger Games". I read both and they are barely comparable. Hunger Games is a teenager book, Battle Royale is a tragedy. And of course Hunger Games gets a lot of hate, like all teenager novels do ... It's actually solid. But if you hate everything teenager related (and especially teenager girls), of course the book is not for you~

This movie just proudly presents the epitome of American politics - "It's not My fault that the world is the way it is". It's American Exceptionalism down to the individual. When people shoot up a school or commit suicide (those are fairly close actually, more often than not the shooters desire to take their own lives anyway) then we can never talk about society, about bullying, about pressures, about identity. It's never our fault, we don't need to introspect - evil is just a thing that happens. The devil, some random thing that happens sometimes, not the reaction to environmental circumstances and experiences of a subject.

After the nefarious depiction of BLM in that one book, I'm so curious to see what kind of stories Ben Shabibo's company will make.

There was a man who carried out a mass shooting in a movie theater who was inspired by the joker and openly wanted to imitate him, and the Columbine shooters planted bombs in the school which they intended to go off after the shooting. It’s just so tasteless to use those elements of genuine tragedies in a shoot em up action movie

I wrote a script similar to this to depict how bullying and ragging can lead unstable rage filled individuals in the society. I won't give away the speciality of the main character but the villain on the other hand I wanted him to be a everyday student who is the smartest in the school who was bullied throughout his entire school life. His character and personality were a mix between anton from no country for old men and Raoul Silva from skyfall, both played by Javier Bardem. The reason why I picked them is to show that they were abandoned by society and we can't understand their mentality. The message is similar to the recent joker, but this villain is not insane. Not only he is sane but he is incredibly bright with a 150-160 IQ.

That one guy talks about inspiring people in similar situations to be proactive when the expression "run, hide, fight" is literally about fighting being a last resort. Truly bizzare

These people are absolutely horney to have an excuse to shoot someone.

A villian who wants to kill for social media fame isn't an awful concept, it was done very well in Spree, the main difference is Kurt was based on actual killers/crazy people and this guy is just a total goon.

Ben makes a big statement about how the shooters are villains and can’t be excused. About five minutes later talks about how deep his movie is like he didn’t just make the biggest back and white argument of good guy vs bad guy

Ah, yes. A "good guy with a gun" is the solution. Even though that's not how school shootings usually end and that doesn't help with gang violence, domestic violence, and suicide that make up much more gun violence than mass shootings

“Villains in film have since evolved to complex people who have understandable albeit twisted motives. ..So we wanted to go back to when baddies were just evil!”

"Kip" is based on Kip Kinkle, a man from Oregon who shot up his former high school in 1998 after murdering his parents. He turned himself in to the authorities, and has expressed great remorse for his actions ever since. After the Columbine shootings, he became despondent, blaming himself (as he was afraid that the Columbine shooter were inspired by his crimes). This information doesn't add or detract from what's said in this video. I just thought it was worth mentioning.

the dirties is so uncomfortable and moving, I'm so glad you mentioned it. They were able to highlight so many of the specific shortcomings when it comes to understanding and counseling people with the capacity for violence, as well as the way we overlook the actions of others that can be clear red flags in hindsight, and they did this all simply through *how* it was filmed. It could have just been a documentary, but they put their weirdly relatable characters right at the center of it that all these messages and themes hang off of perfectly. its so good. Matt Johnson is a treasure.

I honestly don't understand how this movie was supposed to be some attack against leftists or these conservatives trying to weasel their way into the entertainment industry. 1. They made a movie to address how terrible school shootings are (although they dressed it up as a cheesy action thriller) I'm sure that's what they were trying to convey. 2. By making so many of these characters one-dimensional targets like Jose mentioned, which is the opposite of what Elephant did, they've dismantled their pro-life and All Lives Matter stances. The lives of these kids didn't matter to them, they just wanted them to be bodies on screen to be targets for the shooters. They don't want the audience to care about their lives or what happens to them. Also, the shot where they have that kid under the van even though we didn't see them get run over was so disgustingly careless and cartoonish. 3. I love how the main shooter mentions that the school security guard makes a low wage in the same breath as mentioning that he should be armed. Wow, they're actually advocating for higher wages? 4. If these people care so much about the police and Blue Lives Matter and shit, why didn't these characters just let the cops do their job? Doesn't it make the police look weak and incompetent that instead of the police saving these kids, this girl had to save everyone? Oh, also, I find it very progressive that the main action lead is a teenaged girl. I mean, they could have had her calling her dad during the shooting and had him come save the day. I don't get it; is that supposed to be an own to us leftists or an homage? I thought the rhetoric was "it takes a good guy with a gun...blah, blah, blah...not a good girl?"

José you seriously don't miss

One of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes was from Robbie Collin. Collin writes for the Daily Telegraph which is a conservative newspaper in the UK,, so hardly a radical leftist. But Ben Shapiro was stupid enough to call Andrew Neill, a prominent conservative journalist in the UK a leftist because Neill dared to do his job.

This is the first video I ever saw of yours, but it was so good, I will now spend the next however long it takes to watch everything else you made~

Super Columbine Massacre RPG: The Movie

Conservatives: Let's not make school shootings political, think of the children! Also conservatives: *makes a movie of school shootings and blame the "radical left" of not letting it go to Hollywood *

For a pro-gun movie about school school shootings, the creators of this flick sure have no idea how guns work other than they shoot things. You're telling me that NOBODY outside the cafeteria heard the gunshots when guns are EXTREMELY loud? Yeah, sure buddy. At my grandfather's funeral, they did a 21-gun salute from like half a mile away or more from where we were and they were so loud I thought they were right next to us. There's a reason they have you wear earmuffs at a firing range, and that's why: because you might actually go deaf if you didn't.

Thank you so much. Even though I'm one year late, this movie was brought up in conversation with my conservative mother. She seemed disturbed when she described the movie to me, but assure me that it was a "good" and "important" movie. From the way she described it, I said that the movie seemed "Very insensitive". I mentioned that the villains motivation was laughable and it did not reflect how real life school shootings happen at all. Of course, we got into an argument about it, but it just made me think a bit. Again, thank you for bringing up some of these important points about the movie. I wish my mom could understand them.

Man I love the guy admitting "I stayed the same, the world moved left (read: moved forward)," that's so close to being self aware.

I’m so glad you brought up how weird it was for them to have an MP-40, that was bugging me the whole time watching these clips. I think the more interesting thing to point out that none of the shooters seem to use an AR-15, the gun most commonly associated with mass shootings like this, and in fact, it’s the hero at the end who uses an AR derivative, very curious

I honestly think that people who got out of school before the Columbine shooting could never possibly do this topic justice (at least for people who live in America, obviously there are other countries where there were similarly bad shootings well before columbine.) The grown ass adults who wrote, directed and produced this movie could never possibly understand what it is like to enter a school, knowing that you might be shot

This really is "If there was a school shooter at my school, I would simply use my superior skills to kill him first, becoming a hero." the movie.

"These things- to the extent that anything did happen- didn't happen under my watch" Translation="If I wasn't right there participating in the assault as it was happening then I am in no way responsible for the actions or safety of the people who work for me"

let me introduce a more realistic version of the script: the protagonist runs and hides, but when she goes back to pick a fight with the school shooter, she's shot and dies instantly. Roll credits.

I can't believe the Daily Wire promoted this movie as being politic-free escapism while a character keeps spouting word for word right wing talking points. 😆 Even crazier that they made that character the school shooter lol

"We need to focus on mental health," "School shooters are inherently evil and we shouldn't examine why they do the shootings" Shapiro wants us to believe school shooters are just born monsters and there is nothing that can be done about how they turn out. People like Shapiro refuse to actually DO anything in regards to the mental health crisis in our country, they just want to cry about it. This movie fundamentally proves that mindset. The villains are literally caricature movie villains. In reality, just about all of the school shootings that happen could have been prevented had we actually had adequate mental health care in the US, if students were properly educated in mental health and how their behaviors affect others, and if red flag gun law were actually keeping weapons out of the hands of shooters. School shootings CAN be prevented, but Shapiro seems to believe they are inevitable.

The Daily Wire's movie is not approved by a turtle.

I can't possibly explain the feeling of dread I get when I saw that the title of a movie was the "slogan" that my teachers told me during shooting drills. Disgusting even for the Daily Wire.

Love when you release stuff, doesn't matter what the topic or how esoteric, I know it's a guaranteed interesting half hour at least.

Movie basically saying let the kids handle the problems that adults posed on them (kids fighting back other kids with weapons that adults sell to them)

You gotta love how they give one of them an MP40, an SMG from WW2, instead of an AR-15 or an AK.

This could have been more realistic if she gave her boyfriend a gun too so he could help, but when the cops show up, they shoot him thinking he’s the shooter since he’s black.

One Tree Hill covered the topic of school shootings and they handled it with WAY more realism and sensitivity. Elephant was a horror movie like a movie with the subject matter should be. This film is an insult to anyone who has ever been in a school shooting. It's obvious the writers and director didn't do any research.

Wait wait wait. Thomas Jane??? Your telling me the Punisher is her dad. Now it all makes since

Ben said that Hollywood is turning people leftist but what exactly are these leftist values that Ben is talking about? Ultimately Hollywood just love money and tell basic moral tales for the most part. So what are these basic moral tales that Hollywood that ben think is political? Don’t discriminated against other? Don’t be greedy? Take care of the earth?

The "you can't imagine yourself in movies nowadays" comment is so telling. He's incapable of identifying or empathizing with anyone who's different from him. what a sad tiny world that is to live in

So, what about a movie that takes place few weeks/months/almost a year after a school shooting? Journalists heckling traumatized teens, increased security at the school, friends and family of the shooter constantly getting hounded, politicians taking advantage of the trauma, parents becoming helicopter parents and maybe the lingering fear of a future copycat. This is just a setting, but might be a way more interesting way to write a story about this subject.

They’re acting like every school has a John McClane that is able to stop these terrible people and expect the movie to land when there is no impact to it. This movie has no representation of what a school shooting really is outside of kids with guns inside of a school

That movie from the trailer is like a repeat of a repeat. That theme has been done a bunch in Hollywood. The idea that writers, directors, singers, entertainers and huge corporations are leftist is just an irrational belief. Take any artist take Cardi B, who was outspoken against trump, is her music “leftist”? No, it’s not leftist. Take any actor that has been vocally against trump and take a look at their filmography, do they make leftist movies? No. There are like a million cop tv shows. And medical tv shows. None of that stuff is leftist. This thing that Shapiro is discussing is made up in his head. There are a ton of conservative themes in every aspect of American entertainment already. There isn’t room for subtle conservative themes in entertainment because you’ll just end up reproducing the entertainment that already exists Shapiro will soon find that out.

Your description of Michelle in Elephant brought me to tears just thinking of the senseless loss of life of all the children whose names we’ll never know and whose potential will never be realised. This movie is beyond distasteful and the creators should be ashamed of themselves. It’s a sick pro-gun revenge fantasy.

The fact that he really described it as edgy and it wasn't a joke

I like my Die Hards to stay in the Christmas movie genre

The movie is already stupid. One of the kids is toting an MP40? Like... Where do you find a fully functional German WWII gun in suburban America? Also it’s in really poor taste and just overall really bad because I can’t get past the subject. Also also, I’m very lowkey disappointed that Action Girl didn’t take a hit in the leg and then the day had to be saved by *BRET* *HAWTHORNE*

So... the main character's mind is broken from the trauma and she turns into a psychopath? Oh, wait, no, she was fighting and killing from the start so it's not really an arc at all.

I think the grossest aspect of having a hero in a movie about a school shooting is the idea that someone in the shooting could have stopped it. If watched by someone who survived a shooting it could give them a sort of survivor's guilt.

Damn might have to cite this for a paper I’m writing for my Media Ethics course, great video!

"God loves evil, because evil will be judged." Oh God, I want to *scream,* that is almost literally the exact opposite of the Gospel's message. Within the Gospel, it is emphasizes over and over again, that humanity should *not* work to exact any sort of justice against others, or condemn others for their immoral actions, or even just to be confident that the things we believe in and the actions we take are the correct ones. Taking pleasure in the fact that someone you dislike will "Get what they deserve" is so utterly contrary to everything Christ ever taught that it hurts me.

I would KILL to see True Allegiance be turned into a movie.

I want to tell people that in a real senerio. Everything she does in this is what they actually tell you what not to do. Fight to defend yourself, yes. But not kill. Because if the cops/SWAT team comes in and sees you killing the shooter they will probably assume you are the shooter.

Something I noticed after the right latched onto rittenhouse, was their mentality of “our teenagers will inherit the earth while theirs cry”