Charlie Bartlett

(8.5/10)

This movie was originally scheduled for an August release, leaving its trailer floating around for almost a year now. This would have put it up against Superbad and that would have been just that, bad! Hopefully it can find an audience of its own, but with a strict R rating that is pretty much unecessary, I doubt it.

Anton Yelchin, a young talent, really shines here. His previous effort is Alpha Dog and while he did fine, the movie blew! The cast is what holds all this together. I love Hope Davis, she is soooo incredibly underrated and Robert Downey Jr. who I'm usually not a fan of, not personally but just I dunno...has impressed me lately...(Zodiac) and of course I'm excited for a little action hero movie he has on the way. He plays the principal of the school in which Charlie goes to attend after being kicked out of every other school. Posh, private schools by the way...he can't seem to stay out of trouble in his effort to make friends. Well in this school he keeps it up by faking certain syndroms to his family shrink then he goes to school and plays therapist for everyone, EVERYONE...and we all have problems right? Charlie creates havoc and drama and hilarity and yeah... some will complain that this is typical and borrows from 80s fare but hey..I'll take it. It's nice to see a teen movie that isn't just a common raunch fest like always, this has heart...and a sudden dark turn near the end either works for you or doesn't. I'd say this is Heathers meets Rushmore meets Ferris? I dunno. It's a little off balance at times but I don't have many complaints. It's a solid effort.