Review of New Best Friend

Confused and confusing who-dun-it filmed in a relentlessly jerky TV style with at least 95% close-ups that make it even more difficult to follow the action. Just about everyone in the whole cast of about ninety people receive a close-up. The viewer has no idea whether they are important to the plot or not. Only the investigator himself and the headmaster – in a much smaller role – make any impression. Even the victim herself is not firmly delineated. Nor are her friends – if they are "friends"! It's impossible to tell who is who! Who are the "good" people and who are the rotten apples? And at the end of the movie, we are just left in a state of complete confusion. In fact, we are even more confused than we were while the plot was jerkily unfolding. Who was the best friend of who? As far as the principle plot and all the sub-plots were concerned, virtually nothing was explained, nothing was made clear. The only plot item that was made quite emphatically was the small and rather insignificant point that the racist headmaster didn't cotton to the sheriff. As a result, the headmaster sought to have the sheriff sacked, and possibly did so – but even this was not made crystal clear!