Twelve would have been a good movie if it wasn’t for the narrator. They had a great story idea (horrible, rich, upper-east-side brats addicted to drugs), a reasonably good story, and a selection of interesting and memorable characters. In the first half of the movie the narrator is completely out of control, dominating everything and representing maybe 75% of all spoken words. Somewhere in the second half of the film the narration recedes and there are some pretty decent, extended scenes with pretty good dialog. Throughout, the narration (as with most narration) is completely necessary – the stuff the narrator is telling the viewer could have so easily been built into the dialog. It’s a shame they didn’t realize this. Another promising story idea done in by narration!

Still, I think Twelve is better than a lot of crap I’ve seen recently. I liked it better than Rango and Jane Eyre, for example. And compared to other films in its genera, at least Twelve is not doing the same old thing. Sure, the story is full of holes, with characters and plot-lines disappearing and reappearing, and the drug called “Twelve” really does not function as a unifying theme in any way. But nevertheless the movie still holds your attention, and you care about what happens in the end, and I honestly can’t say that about most films I see. I thought all the actors were quite effective, and when the narrator settled into the background, the movie actually became somewhat gripping.

I usually regret most of the movies I see nowadays. I can’t say that about Twelve. It has its problems, it’s not great, it’s not even good, but I still enjoyed it for what it was, and at the end I was left feeling that I had experienced a semi-coherent piece of art, as opposed to a slick and well-developed manipulative media event. I’m not sure what kind of endorsement that really is, but there you have it!