The Delicate Art of the Rifle

Running time: N/A

If you've grown bored with Gen-X filmmakers imitating the violent hipness and Seventies supercoolness of Quentin Tarantino, then you'll appreciate the oddball territory staked out by The Delicate Art of the Rifle. The tenuous plot of this satiric thriller serves as an effective coat rack upon which the filmmakers artfully hang their paranoid conspiracy theories about history and genealogy, economics, real and virtual violence, education, the dangers of philosophy, and much more. Our guide through this contemporary "Inferno" is Jay, a gangly techno-geek who is simultaneously bright (a "lateral thinker" adept at VR games) and ignorant (his roommate is Walt Whitman, "like the guy with the beard"). When he confides that he sometimes goes to the campus store because he feels like spending money, his systems professor tells him, "Our wallets have a predisposition toward meaningful action." "Wow," Jay replies, "that makes me feel better." The Delicate Art of the Rifle veers from a sorority show, "Hamlet: Fashion of Thought, Fashion of Action," to a militant computer science cadre to a college administration that views a sniper on campus as "an educational opportunity" for the Criminal Science SWAT team to gain "valuable life experience." That it remains focused and cohesive is a testament to the unique vision and talent of the filmmakers and, hopefully, is a sign of films to come. --Rod Myers