ronnoco28 Quite a good little dark-humored college mystery film, with an awful lot of twists, that leaves you a bit mind-boggled at the end trying to make some sense out of it. Don't try to take it too seriously, just sit back and enjoy it. Excellent acting and directing from all involved. The characters are all sociopaths, but it's all so tongue-in-cheek that you end up sort of identifying with them, instead of hating them. They did a nice job re-creating the 1990s college atmosphere. Some of the references will become outdated, but 20 years after it was filmed, they still mainly hold up. The dialog is great.One nice touch was the interaction between chainsmoker Det. Amato and Dr. Ashley, who was trying to quit. It was already established that she wasn't going to reveal to the detectives any of her confidential counselling-sessions, but the animosity between herself and Det. Amato reinforced it.Another nice touch was the scene where Tim cons Jimmy out of his $10, and poor clueless Jimmy goes "That Tim, he's a really nice guy". It then cuts to a scene of Emma, an ironic expression on her face, murmuring "He is.....isn't he ?" Foreshadowing what's to come, though we don't know it yet.

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Over the top suspense mystery that takes place on an unnamed eastern Maryland collage. Having found out that if a roommate at collage commits suicide you get an automatic 4.0 average both Tim, Matthew Lillard, and Chris, Michael Vartan, who are sub-par students concoct a plan to get their other roommate Rand, Randall Batinkoff, to kill himself!Rand a nasty and arrogant creep who's constituently humiliating his girlfriend Natalie,Tamara Craig Thomas, in public and making a complete a** of himself is the perfect candidate to knock off with nobody, not even his family members, even missing him.Even though at first he thought it was a joke on Tim's part Chris reluctantly goes along with the plan to do Rand in. This happens late one evening at the light-tower just outside of the collage campus. Getting a very depressed Rand, who had just found out that Natalie is pregnant, to dink a full bottle of whiskey laced with rat poison he goes into convolutions and loses consciousness. With Tim leaving a suicide note in the empty bottle it's made to look like Rand did himself in over Nataie, after telling him that he knocked her up, dumping him.With Chris not having the guts to throw Rand down the Cliff, to make it look like he jumped, Tim finishes the job in having him fall to his death, if he wasn't dead already, to the dangerous rocks some 100 feet below. It's then that things start to get a bit, to put it mildly, out of hand with Chris not willing to get, feeling that he didn't earn it, his well deserved 4.0 average and his partner in crime Tim doing everything he can to implicate him in Rands murder!Tim goes as far as staging a tryst with Chris' girlfriend Emma, Keri Russell, for Chris to see in order to get him go to the cops and confess not only his but Tim's crime! While all this is going on Rand's body is never recovered and thus making it impossible for both Tim and Chris to get their coveted 4.0 average and thus being eligible to enter Harvard or Yale!The movie really gets ridicules in it's myriad of twists and turns that are so incomprehensible that their about as illogical as subatomic Quantom reality is towards modern Newtonian physics! You finally get the picture in the end to what's the story behind Rand's demise and who was really the person or persons behind it. But by then your brain has been so brutally battered and beaten by the films confusing and convoluted storyline, with about a half dozen plot twist, that you don't really care what it is!

jotix100 Some universities and colleges would grant a 4.0 average to the roommates of students that commit suicide. That said, there is always someone who figures out a way to get rid of an obnoxious student if it would mean grades one didn't earn. Leave it to some college kids to figure out a way to get into prestigious schools with little intelligence to justify the artificially inflated grades given to them in order to appease the ordeals they've been through.This is the premise of Dan Rosen's thriller "Dead Man's Curve". Mr. Rosen trying to capitalize on other movies directed to younger audiences, created a story with many twists and turns. Some of the plot devices work, while the viewer is left to ponder some of the logic behind what is presented on the screen. The film, as some of the comments do suggest, will resonate more with American audiences because they might be more aware of this curious fact that some of our higher institutions of learning reward students that come close to tragedy.There are four people that can gain admittance to Harvard, one of the elite centers for learning in the country. Tim and Chris conspire to get rid of the boorish and obnoxious Rand and by doing so, they will be admitted to the place of their dreams, almost by osmosis, since they don't have the grades to prove their intelligence. But Rand's body is never found, so can it be considered a true suicide? When the police appears to interrogate them, Tim suddenly switches his story and Chris' account of what happened is questioned by the detectives.The second plot involves Emma, who is Chris' girlfriend. She also has her own agenda. When Natalie, her roommate, who had been going with Rand, tests positive as being pregnant, puts the Canadian co-ed into a suicidal mood. Emma will stand to receive the good grades and has an assured future, or so it seems. It is at this point when another twist that comes out of nowhere occurs. Rand, who didn't die, resurfaces. His explanation doesn't convince, but here is where one gets to the real point in the film. Chris, it turns out has done some planning on his own, really wants to get rid of Tim.The intense Matthew Lillard gives an over the top performance as Tim, the man at the center of the story. Michael Vartan plays Chris and Randall Baliskoff is seen as Rand. Keri Russell, a gorgeous creature, appears as the sweet Emma, an ambitious girl, herself. Dana Delaney's role is not justified as the psychiatrist that acts as a sort of a Catholic priest, knowing the students' secrets, but not coming forward to denounce what really is going on.

Roland Rat The plot is based on the Urban Myth that the roommates of college student that commits suicide automatically get given straight A's to ameliorate the trauma of the incident. So two students get together to murder their roommate and pass it off as a suicide just so that they can claim their top grades.This film was billed on my TV station as a black comedy; and given the basic plot there was a lot of potential for some good dark humor. Sadly the film was lacking in nearly all departments - there's no humor to speak of, the plot is made uninteresting, and the acting is forgettable.The main characters are intensely irritating (esp. Matthew Lillard), and the movie constantly grates. As for the ending, I didn't quite manage get that far so sadly I must have missed the "complex twisting plot". All in all this movie managed to hit nearly all the wrong notes with me; it's too much of a teen movie for my liking, and too much of a psychological thriller, and really not nearly enough of the black comedy.