DVD Review

Assassination Of A High School President

Official Synopsis:

How far would you go to hang with the hottest girl on campus? Assassination of a High School President is an acid-tongued high-school comedy with attitude to spare, starring a sexy young cast including Mischa Barton (TV's The O.C., The Sixth Sense), Reece Daniel Thompson (Rocket Science), and superstar Bruce Willis. Sophomore newspaper reporter Bobby Funke (Thompson) is assigned to write a cover story on popular class president and top athlete. After a stack of SAT tests is stolen from the office of hard-as-nails Principal Kirkpatrick (Willis), Funke publishes an expose that names Paul as the prime suspect and suddenly, Bobby is BMOC. But when Paul's girlfriend, sexy senior Francesca (Barton), makes a move on Bobby and even his former bullies play nice, Funke begins to doubt the star jock's guilt and everyone else's motives. When his investigation uncovers a campus-wide conspiracy that threatens to take down students and teachers alike, Funke must decide to tell the truth or enjoy his new stud status. Also starring Michael Rapaport, Luke Grimes and Aaron Himelstein.

Our Take:

Assassination Of A High School President wants to be cool soooooo badly that it’s a little bit embarrassing. There’s an unwritten rule that anytime you’re writing dialogue just so it sounds edgy and hip, it’s probably going to suck (see Juno for that kind of hit or miss status). And that’s the problem here. Assassination has the fun concept of putting a private eye spin into a high school setting (something that was done brilliantly with Brick) and instead of playing it seriously it plays it for laughs. Which, I will admit, was funny at first. For like five minutes. After that it became tedious pretty darn quickly.

There is something amazing about this movie, though, and that is its lead actor Reece Thompson. This kid is amazing. I’ve previously seen him in Rocket Science (which is a phenomenally underrated film) and I couldn’t wait to see this kid get more work. Despite the movie itself lacking a bit this kid manages to keep me entertained and not feeling like I just wasted an hour and a half.

Special Features:

Commentary with Director Bret Simon and Writers Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski
Alternate Opening Scenes with Optional Commentary
Extended, Alternate and Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary

Conclusion:

Assassination Of A High School President may very well be a case of me not giving it a fair due because in my mind I keep comparing it to Brick. But as of right now, after one viewing all I’ve seen is an incredibly average movie with an amazing performance. Not much more, not much less.

Overall Picture:

Movie: C+
Extra Features: C+

- Landen Chase Pelish
Staff Writer