In a multiplex front-loaded with cheap jolts (Vantage Point) and cheaper jokes (how psyched are you to see College Road Trip?), filmmaker Gus Van Sant gives us a haunting tone poem laced with violent death. The setting is Portland, Oregon, where Van Sant lives and where Paranoid Park attracts the city's riskier skateboarders. Enter Alex, a teen boarder played with bruised innocence, and a face with dew still on it, by Gabe Nevins. At the park, Alex skates in a hypnotic, vaguely homoerotic haze…

Choppy, unprofessional film techniques, acting that matches that amateurish look, and an overriding feeling of teen ennui make Paranoid Park into possibly the longest 90 minutes of your life.

Story

Alex (Gabe Nevins) is a disaffected teenager whose entire life revolves around skateboarding, especially since his parents have split up. The high schooler is not even interested in his pretty girlfriend (Taylor Momsen), despite her willingness to lose her virginity to him. No, it is all about…