Review of Assassination of a High School President (2008) by Storytellershannon M — 09 Aug 2013

This black comedy/film noir reminds me a lot of the movie "Brick" though it has a less serious tone to it. It's about a wanna be journalist high school kid known as Funke who has yet to write an article but still boasts he will someday get into the Northwestern program. His big chance comes along when the high school president is accused of stealing SATs and suddenly he's big in town. He even gets the high school hottie but it wouldn't be much of a movie if that was it and things turn out to be more than he expected. Bruce Willis has a supporting and unusually funny role as the high school principal a former Gulf War veteran who lost his legs yet still remains patriotic and can still smack kids around because this isn't public school, babies. The one line bits in this picture are awesome and so graphic it is definitely not for children. Minor nudity, too, so stay away prudes. There are film noir references all over the place and ya gotta know your gumshoe detective stories to appreciate the nuances. So many that previous reviewers have rightly pointed out that you should run this picture with the subtitles so that you don't miss things. It was poorly marketed because the company went bankrupt but you should know it garnered rave reviews at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The budget was $11.5M but because of matters mentioned above it only yielded $6M at the Box Office so far (Wiki).

CHARACTERS/DIALOGUE: B plus to A minus; STORY/PLOTTING: B plus to A minus;.

HUMOR: B plus; CLUE TRAIL: B plus; WHEN WATCHED: end of March 2012;.

OVERALL GRADE: B plus to A minus.