Have you got the nerve?

Nerve, with Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, Emily Meade. Directed by Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman. 3.5/5 NERVE is a thriller for the teenage market with a foxy storyline.

The heroine, Venus or Vee (Emma Roberts), is involved in an online game that has real-life applications. She, or anyone else, who plays the game can earn money by performing stunts or dares online.

She meets Ian (Dave Franco) by fulfilling a dare to kiss a total stranger. Unknown to her he is not just a total stranger. He is a player with a dark past. He fulfils a dare and serenades her in the restaurant.

Soon they are in New York city in an expensive department store trying on evening wear, when they are dared to leave the store. Neither of them wants to steal the clothes, but when they try to change, they find their own clothes missing. So they decide to leave the store in their underwear, only to find clothes waiting for them in a bag outside the department store.

The rules of the game require that the player or players must film the dare with their cellphone as they are doing it. But the harmless game quickly becomes positively reckless. Teenagers are hanging off skyscrapers and lying on railway tracks, just to fulfil dares.

There is a rise in the death rate and yet the authorities themselves are a part of the network of Nerve. Instead of tracking down the players and arresting them, they do nothing but watch.

The player with the most watchers is the ultimate winner and the best way of defeating an opponent, is to kill them so that they cannot perform any more dares. The watchers are quite happy to see their favourite players pushed to this emotional extreme.

The players themselves are also desperate to win. The hackers who created the online game are making them rich, but they are also capable of emptying their bank accounts. So players are blackmailed into performing more and more stunts.

The only way they can get their lives back is by winning the game. The watchers are as responsible for what happens as the players are, and the safe watcher is no more honourable than the risk-taking player. The watchers are also capable of violence, especially against players they don't like.

Unfortunately, the movie does not build sufficient momentum to be truly credible, and fails to take advantage of one simple fact: not taking any risks, is the biggest risk of all.