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Arielle Summers (Bella Thorne) lives in Florida with her mother. She works in a diner, saving up her wages (stashing the money in a box under her bed, so that we know that sooner than later her mother’s boyfriend is going to rob her blind) to go to Hollywood, where she hopes to become famous despite lacking any discernible qualities other than looking like a an adult actress (emphasis on 'adult').
One night, Arielle goes to a party, gets in a fight, and beats up some other girl while everyone else records the event for social media. Arielle immediately gains 147 new followers, getting her first inkling that appealing to the lowest common denominator is the fastest way to fame.
The next day Arielle meets Dean Taylor (Jake Manley), who looks like Stephen Dorff and Mark McGrath’s bastard child. They spend time together at another party, where Dean reveals that he was in prison for armed robbery and assault, and that his parole requires him to live with his father.
This is where the movie begins to fall apart. This parole requirement seems to suggest that Dean is underage, and in fact Arielle later refers to the two of them as “a teenage couple.” Okay, Bella Thorne is 22 (and that's, of course, what I mean by 'adult'), while Manley is 28, and neither of them look a day younger than their respective ages, especially him.
As expected, Arielle discovers that all her money has been swiped, so she packs up and goes to Dean’s house to finds his father beating the shit out of him. Dean fights back, and his father ends up falling down the stairs to his apparent doom. Arielle and Dean immediately skip town, and realizing they have no money, decide to hold up a gas station with Dean’s gun.
Arielle tapes the stick-up and uploads it online, resulting in three thousand new followers. Dean is upset when he finds out that Arielle has been broadcasting their crimes, but Arielle says she used an “IP blocker” and didn’t show their faces.
Appeased, Dean gets behind the camera as well, and their crime spree nets Arielle’s more than three million followers. They are eventually identified by the police, their faces shown on the news. Dean is angry, but Arielle is elated to finally be (in)famous.
They are pulled over by the police, and when the officer goes to check their IDs, Arielle gets out of the car and shoots him. Arielle and Dean go into hiding, which leads to Arielle losing subscribers and followers.
Even though they have enough money, Arielle goes off alone to rob a gas station, accidentally killing a customer. The climax of the film takes place during a bank robbery involving the couple and other criminals, and which Arielle live-streams for her now five million followers.
As far as I can tell, Infamous strives to satirize the extremes to which people will go for followers and ‘likes.’ The problem, other than targeting low-hanging fruit, is that the movie tries to illustrate its point with a situation that could never happen in real life.
A real-world Arielle might literally steal and kill for internet fame, but it would be to no avail because YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., would remove her videos and block her accounts faster than she could say 'Jackie Robinson’.
But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Arielle lives in a world where these social networks have no policies against violent, graphic, and illegal material; her and Dean’s criminal exploits occur across at least three states, which would inevitably draw the attention of the FBI, and I'm pretty sure they could easily bypass Arielle’s “IP blocker”.
Who knows; maybe Arielle also lives in an alternate reality where President William McKinley wasn’t assassinated and the FBI never created. Unfortunately for Infamous, however, we live in a universe in which Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands, Dog Day Afternoon, and Natural Born Killers do exist — and while all of these films, like Infamous, are morally ambiguous at best, on the other hand they are, unlike Infamous, works of art with compelling characters — and that makes Infamous redundant and unnecessary.
INFAMOUS
Arielle Summers (Bella Thorne) lives in Florida with her mother. She works in a diner, saving up her wages (stashing the money in a box under her bed, so that we know that sooner than later her mother’s boyfriend is going to rob her blind) to go to Hollywood, where she hopes to become famous despite lacking any discernible qualities other than looking like a an adult actress (emphasis on 'adult').
One night, Arielle goes to a party, gets in a fight, and beats up some other girl while everyone else records the event for social media. Arielle immediately gains 147 new followers, getting her first inkling that appealing to the lowest common denominator is the fastest way to fame.
The next day Arielle meets Dean Taylor (Jake Manley), who looks like Stephen Dorff and Mark McGrath’s bastard child. They spend time together at another party, where Dean reveals that he was in prison for armed robbery and assault, and that his parole requires him to live with his father.
This is where the movie begins to fall apart. This parole requirement seems to suggest that Dean is underage, and in fact Arielle later refers to the two of them as “a teenage couple.” Okay, Bella Thorne is 22 (and that's, of course, what I mean by 'adult'), while Manley is 28, and neither of them look a day younger than their respective ages, especially him.
As expected, Arielle discovers that all her money has been swiped, so she packs up and goes to Dean’s house to finds his father beating the shit out of him. Dean fights back, and his father ends up falling down the stairs to his apparent doom. Arielle and Dean immediately skip town, and realizing they have no money, decide to hold up a gas station with Dean’s gun.
Arielle tapes the stick-up and uploads it online, resulting in three thousand new followers. Dean is upset when he finds out that Arielle has been broadcasting their crimes, but Arielle says she used an “IP blocker” and didn’t show their faces.
Appeased, Dean gets behind the camera as well, and their crime spree nets Arielle’s more than three million followers. They are eventually identified by the police, their faces shown on the news. Dean is angry, but Arielle is elated to finally be (in)famous.
They are pulled over by the police, and when the officer goes to check their IDs, Arielle gets out of the car and shoots him. Arielle and Dean go into hiding, which leads to Arielle losing subscribers and followers.
Even though they have enough money, Arielle goes off alone to rob a gas station, accidentally killing a customer. The climax of the film takes place during a bank robbery involving the couple and other criminals, and which Arielle live-streams for her now five million followers.
As far as I can tell, Infamous strives to satirize the extremes to which people will go for followers and ‘likes.’ The problem, other than targeting low-hanging fruit, is that the movie tries to illustrate its point with a situation that could never happen in real life.
A real-world Arielle might literally steal and kill for internet fame, but it would be to no avail because YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., would remove her videos and block her accounts faster than she could say 'Jackie Robinson’.
But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Arielle lives in a world where these social networks have no policies against violent, graphic, and illegal material; her and Dean’s criminal exploits occur across at least three states, which would inevitably draw the attention of the FBI, and I'm pretty sure they could easily bypass Arielle’s “IP blocker”.
Who knows; maybe Arielle also lives in an alternate reality where President William McKinley wasn’t assassinated and the FBI never created. Unfortunately for Infamous, however, we live in a universe in which Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands, Dog Day Afternoon, and Natural Born Killers do exist — and while all of these films, like Infamous, are morally ambiguous at best, on the other hand they are, unlike Infamous, works of art with compelling characters — and that makes Infamous redundant and unnecessary.