Review of Assassination of a High School President (2008) by Melvin W — 14 May 2012

Clara: Forget it, Funke. It's high school. .

"Politics, popularity, paranoia, pharmaceuticals. Are you in?".

Assassination of a High School President is a really cool film in my opinion. It blurs the line between a typical set in high school movie and a noir; like Brick, but not nearly as serious. It doesn't take long to find out that this is using movies like Chinatown and All the Presidents Men for material. There's a lot of dialogue, references, and scenes that tell us just that. I liked the movie for that. It took serious conspiracy stories and threw them in a high school setting with a lot of stuff we would find familiar. The standard high school movie plot devices and characters that is.

We are given a main character, Funke. He is a geek; unliked and unknown. He's also a writer for the school newspaper, although he has yet to write a single article. When the SAT's go missing, he finds who he thinks is the culprit and writes a story on him. The person he fingers is none other than the high school president. Soon, like in many other high school set films, the geek has been reborn as a "cool" kid and he's banging the hottest chick in school. From there the story keeps developing and the conspiracy widens and widens. It almost seems serious, except that it isn't. We're reminded of that by characters that take every serious situation and make it into a joke and by Bruce Willis who plays the principle in such a ridiculous and comical way.

This isn't a great movie by any standards and I can see why many people didn't like it. It didn't really do anything original or noteworthy, but it seems like everyone involved thinks it is original. But all it is is a movie that has been done before thrown into a new setting. With that said, I loved it. There was nothing about it that I didn't like. I thought it was funny, well thought out, and smart in a stupid way. I liked the references and I didn't think there was a bad scene in the movie. Plus I couldn't stop laughing at the party scene where they are playing pong and a kid says "I got winner" and collapses onto the table, is then picked up and says he wants another toothpaste cigarette. It's funnier if you watch it, I swear. .

All in all, this movie really surprised me. I didn't expect it to be nearly as fun or good as it was. Most of that came because of the lackluster reviews, but part of it was my own guess. I was wrong and I am really glad I took a chance on it. It's a movie I couldn't help falling in love with and I'm sure I will watch it many times in the future and get the same kick out of it I did the first time around.