One would think that a film ending with the image of two burning crosses might have some poignant conclusion to communicate to its audience. However, as the credits roll at the end of Zero Day, most questions remain unanswered. In fact, an entirely new question arises: Why do people keep making Columbine movies that give you the ingredients for disaster but fail to pinpoint an explanation?
Zero Day is not like Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, a piece of political and social commentary. It is a fictionalized chronicle of the year leading up to the boys’ attack. It is shot in the home-video style of the Blair Witch Project, similar to the footage that the real life Columbine perpetrators Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold created of their various preparations.
In the opening scene, Andre Kriegman, played by George Washington University first-year Andre Keuck, cocks his shotgun and threatens the audience with the comment “54 seconds is all it takes to come after you.” From the beginning, these kids deal with a power struggle. They love to bear their weapons, threaten audiences that cannot defend themselves and hate that popular guy with the Range Rover, girlfriend, grades and football uniform.
Zero Day poses the popular question concerning sexuality as a possible root of the Columbine tragedy. One cannot help but notice that neither Cal nor Andre are interested in girls, or other boys for that matter. They seem to live indirectly for each other through their murders planned for “zero day,” but several scenes throughout the movie suggest a deeper bond.
Is it normal to say to your best friend, “Come on, touch my box, Cal, touch my box!” as Andre does in the bank safety deposit room during one of their devious errands. The most revealing scene comes when Cal refers to Andre as lieutenant and then orders him to drive here and there in their suburban Connecticut town. Again, the power struggle emerges, and the two friends seem turned on by the role-playing.
Aside from their sinister plot, Cal and Andre seem to lead normal, happy lives. Andre has a part-time job, Cal goes camping with his family, and their families in general seem loving and well to do.
One of the most heartbreaking characters in Zero Day is Andre’s father, interestingly enough played by Keuck’s real life father, who gives him several inspirational speeches throughout the film. The most memorable advice is related during a driving lesson, in which he encourages Andre to keep working hard, telling him that everyone has to start somewhere. He then musters up an “I’m proud of you” at which the audience shudders, knowing that Andre will soon be carried out of school in a body bag. Keuck related that his dad was, in fact, this warm in real life. One is left to wonder if Klebold or Harris would have been so complimentary of their own parents.
After their terrible act is complete, a cross for each life is placed in memorial on the high school’s lawn. As the camera backs away from this scene, Cal and Andre’s crosses are aflame and the audience is left with the same lingering questions the world shared after watching the news on April 20, 1999. Why did they do this? What have they achieved?
