Zero day has a purpose and this is not simply entertainment, it delivers a message about its specialised subject school shootings. Charting the lives of two friends Andre and Cal leading up to an attack on their high school.
Whilst the movie started in somewhat unassuming fashion, an impromptu announcement of the coming attack in amateurish teenage style followed by some brief encounters with the boys families. It is not long before we are down to business with the boys showing us their collection of guns, their fetishistic love of them, their sprawling sporadic narcissistic fantasies and even in a controversial scene how to build pipe bombs.
So what is the movie trying to say? What is really motivating these soon to be killers. It seems hard to really pinpoint. They certainly do not come across as cold blooded psychopaths yet they are planning an act of sheer brutality. This brings me to what I feel is the genius in part of Zero day. Cal and Andre talk constantly about how much they are on a different level, how above the rest of us they are and how they will 'leave us all behind.' Like the columbine killers they truly feel superior. Like Nietzsche's res sentiment Cal and Andre's value system seems to have been born out of rejection from their society. Yet we are given only glimpses of this, an expression of hatred for a popular athlete for example. So where is the motivation? What I feel is that Coccio portrayed two individuals desperate to make a statement of superiority a gesture of their power yet who have no reasonable venue for it. Hence they turn to mass murder and the kind of which that will garner them more attention than they could ever realise. This is why in part school shooters seem able to carry out atrocious acts despite coming from good stable loving homes. The murder is part of a fantasy, Cal and Andre are totally lost in their fantasy they almost fail to see the reality of their actions. They turn fantasy into tragedy.
What is secondly most enthralling about this film is the character development and the unique dependence Cal and Andre have on each other. Andre is throughout the film overtly the leader of the two, Cal's embrace of his demeanour and attire seem somewhat forced. Andre is uptight, Andre is intense and serious. He completely shuns others except for his family, he is meticulous and precise about everything he does and for a while appears the prime mover in the plot to attack the school. Yet he is likable in his own way, he does not embrace teenage nonsense and in part we feel compelled to agree with him, yet these moments are shattered by Andre's fleeting gestures of violence towards us the audience treating us as both confidante and potential victim. Cal on the other hand seems more relaxed than Andre, more accepting of reality. Yet he is in his own way dominant. We have many personal moments of introspection with Cal's video diary, scenes when he is alone and apart from Andre. Cal seems to be struggling with his own personal demons and using their plan to exorcise himself of them. Andre is jealous of Cal going to the prom with an old friend, he wants Cal all to himself. Cal placates Andre and encourages him. For the first time in his life Andre seems to have found someone who believes in him and who admires him he cannot lose it. Whilst Cal has found someone offering him a way out.
The movie certainly picks up pace and improves as it nears its grim conclusion. There is an excellent moment when Cal attends the high school prom. Suddenly the star of the movie becomes shy and introverted, not at all at ease with his peers. Yet we are inclined to feel more connection with Cal than with the raucous bawdy crowd screaming juvenile obscenities whilst drinking heavily in their limo. Theirs is an episode all too common and recognisable. We do not want to relate to them, when it is over and Cal is back with Andre silently preparing one of their final videos we like the characters feel once again at ease safe in the fantasy world they created. We feel like shunning the masses as they have.
The penultimate scene is superb. The final video sees Andre and Cal arming themselves in their car just moments before attacking. It is all too real and truly creates a sense of impending doom. By know we know Cal and Andre and are realising they are about to actually do it, with a kind of morbid fascination we are also relishing the films catharsis.
The massacre shot in CCTV fashion is at times shocking, and whilst it was certainly the perfect choice to depict the massacre if we were going to it is not void of flaws. What is most significant is the sudden radical change of perception we have of Cal and Andre, looking at them in the this person suddenly they are the callous killers we knew they would become yet refused to acknowledge that they would. It is violent and real, our heroes have become monsters and the reality of their fantasy is a terrible tragedy, which costs them everything.
The final scene shows a group of teens filming themselves burning the crosses erected for Andre and cal in disgust that they have been memorialised. Having known Andre and Cal we can only feel almost a sadness that they are actually gone forever and that they certainly did not win anything.
Zero day is a must see for anyone interested in these violent acts sensationalised by the media. It is a character study well worth experiencing.
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