Raising victor Vargas is just a bad film. No amount of denial or ad-dollar supported publicity with change this sad fact.
Maybe Peter Sollett saw he didn't have the money to do the movie he wanted to make and decided to take the easy way out by making a bad film that cynically apes the tenets of current "edgy film-making". Maybe he just doesn't know any better. It's hard to tell.
What's not hard to tell is the result. Except for a few viewers who will intellectualize the bad film-making into an attempt at pseudo-realism, few will enjoy it.
I know I didn't.
Do yourselves a favor and pass on this film.