Nerve Dvd

Nerve is a 2016 American techno-thriller adventure film directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman and written by Jessica Sharzer, based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Jeanne Ryan. The film stars Emma Roberts, Dave Franco and Juliette Lewis, and revolves around an online objective truth or dare online game, which allows people to enlist as “players” or “watchers” and as the game progresses further, the players are contacted and invited to participate in more dangerous and risky dares than their prior ones.

The film premiered at the SVA Theater on July 12, 2016 and was theatrically released on July 27, 2016, by Lionsgate. Nerve received praise for its energy and the chemistry of its cast, and grossed over $85 million worldwide against a $19 million budget.

Plot

High school senior Venus “Vee” Delmonico longs to leave Staten Island for college, but is avoiding telling her mother as they are still mourning the death of her older brother. Her friend Sydney becomes popular in Nerve: an online reality game of truth and dare, but without the truth element – where people either enlist as “players” or register to watch as “watchers”. Players accept dares as they’re invited by watchers and receive monetary rewards if they successfully complete those dares. Watchers in turn pay to spectate as the players attempt their challenges.

Sydney chastises Vee’s unadventurous nature so Vee signs up as a player. There are three basic rules: all dares must be recorded on the player’s phone, earned money will be revoked if a player fails or bails on a dare, and that “snitches get stitches.”

Vee’s first dare is to kiss a stranger at a diner. Told to kiss Ian, she completes this, to which Ian dances and sings to Vee, revealing he’s another player on a dare. The next challenge requires Ian to take Vee to Manhattan on his motorcycle. There, they are given another task, wherein they are dared to try on expensive formal attire. Their street clothes are stolen and the watchers dare them to leave the store. Unwilling to be caught stealing, they flee in their undergarments. They return to Ian’s motorbike where they find the expensive clothes, which have been paid for by an unknown benefactor.

Vee is dared to get a tattoo chosen by Ian, and Ian is then dared to ride his motorbike through the city blindfolded at 60 mph, using Vee to steer his body; once completed, the two kiss. Vee and Ian become among Nerve’s top players.

Jealous of Vee’s popularity, Sydney accepts a dare at a party to cross a ladder between two buildings. Sydney bails and is eliminated from the game. Vee catches Sydney making out with J.P., a boy Vee likes, and the two have a major argument. Tommy reveals that he was watching Ian’s profile; Ian had accepted a request to make Vee and Sydney fight. Vee completes the ladder challenge herself. Realizing that game players could die, she reports the game to a policeman but he doesn’t believe her. Having broken the third rule requiring that snitchers get punished, all the money in her family’s bank accounts vanish. Highly ranked player Ty accepts a dare to knock her unconscious.

Vee wakes up in a shipping container with “snitches get stitches” on the walls. She escapes and finds Ian, who confesses that he and Ty were players whose friend was accidentally killed in a dare. When they tried to alert the authorities, their families’ jobs, bank accounts, and identities were stolen by the watchers. Vee has now joined them in the secret third category of the game: “prisoners”. If a prisoner can reach and win the day’s final round, they regain everything.

Vee, Tommy, and Sydney recruit Tommy’s hacker friends to alter the game’s online code, but it is impossible to simply shut down Nerve, as all the watchers phones act as a distributed server.

Vee and Ian earn the two spots in the final dare, which takes place at Battery Weed. The winner will be whoever shoots the other with the handguns they’ve been given. Ian offers her the win, but when she also refuses to shoot, Ty jumps from the audience to take Ian’s place and shoots her, and she “dies” in Ian’s arms.

Suddenly, Tommy and his hackers modify Nerve’s source code to decrypt the watcher’s code names and send them all a message: “You are an accessory to murder”, accompanied by each watcher’s real name. All the audience members immediately log out, closing down the game’s servers and effectively ending it. Ian aims his gun at Ty, but Vee reveals that she and Ty had staged her murder to scare the watchers into disbanding Nerve. Ty explains the weapon was loaded with blanks and he was, in fact, conspiring with the hackers. Tommy’s hacker friends restore the stolen money and identities.

A few months later, Vee and Sydney have reconciled, Ian finally reveals to Vee that his real name is Samuel Winner, Vee and Ian/Sam are a couple and Vee is attending CalArts.

Cast

Emma Roberts as Vee, a player of Nerve.
Dave Franco as Ian / Sam, Vee’s fellow player.
Emily Meade as Sydney, one of Vee’s friends.
Miles Heizer as Tommy, one of Vee’s friends who has an unrequited crush on her.
Juliette Lewis as Nancy, Vee’s mother.
Kimiko Glenn as Liv, one of Vee’s friends.
Marc John Jefferies as Wes
Colson Baker as Ty, Vee’s main opponent in the game.
Brian Marc as J.P.
Ed Squires as Chuck
Samira Wiley as Hacker Kween, one of Tommy’s hacker friends.
Casey Neistat as himself, another player.
Chloe Wise as herself, another player.