adminOver the 75 years that I’ve been an avid filmgoer, including the dozen or so years I’ve written formally about them, there have been more than a few of which I felt I could not give an affirmative recommendation.
But there has not been a single film, till now, of which I would urge potential viewers not to do so. It is my considered opinion that upon emerging from a viewing of this film there will have been a considerable and measurable diminution in one’s spirit and joie-de-vivre; not markedly different from attending the drawn out and painful death of a loved one.
Mercifully not over long in number of minutes, it nevertheless drags the viewer over a ragged and scathing terrain.
We are in small town America as its high school class is about to be graduated. We are confronted with one of the seniors, Schmidt (Jonah Hill), making an effort to convince one of the senior class beauties to be his date at the graduation ceremonies. We the audience, and everyone in the film know that he is unattractive, ungainly a loser in every way. The butt of jokes of all those both boys and girls in that year’s graduating class.
Painfully, we, the audience, see that the actor Jonah Hill fits that description to a “T”. Imagine, if you will, having a son who aspires to a Hollywood career to fill roles which require an ugly high school senior.
We move ahead in the plot with Schmidt and a classmate, Jenko (Brie Larson), applying for positions with the local police force.
It occurs to their superiors, following the initial training, that these two are appropriate for a plan the Police Department has been considering: to re-introduce a couple of extremely youthful appearing officers back into high school in the guise of new students.
They observe from the inside and report fully to their superiors the illicit goings on in a typical American high school.
If you see this film, you do so at your peril. I repeat the recommendation that it be given a miss.
Online Reporter