A minor chord social rage riff, Leslie Cardé’s America Betrayed takes a crack at exposing the dirty little secrets behind our nation’s crumbling infrastructure, in particular the complicity between the Army Corps of Engineers — designers of the levees that failed during Hurricane Katrina — and the United States Congress, which funds the group, nominally tasks it in a manner that includes plenty of inessential or less important public works projects, and then provides little to no oversight, allowing some jobs to run over schedule by decades.

As a sociopolitical documentary, the film slots in decently alongside recent similar cage-rattling product like I.O.U.S.A. and The Ascent of Money — movies that cast long, deep shadows of doubt over governmental competence and fiscal responsibility, and the ability of even honest politicians, public servants and activists to affect change both quick and substantive. And with our bridges, dams, levees and highways collectively crumbling, toppling, being washed away and putting American citizens and cities at risk, the issue of infrastructure reinforcement and reinvestment is an undeniably important one. But America Betrayed isn’t the film to galvanize public opinion, or even clearly impart a message of how things stand.

Narrated by Richard Dreyfuss, America Betrayed bills itself as “a cautionary tale for Americans everywhere,” but it’s far too messy to connect on any sort of lasting emotional level. Featuring scores of interviews with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists,
noted scientists, politicians from both sides of the aisle (including
free-use clips from Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Clinton), and whistleblowers who risked their lives and careers to
speak out, the movie is literally aflood with information. (Yeah: pun.) It’s just that it’s poorly organized, structured and delineated.

America Betrayed begins with an exploration of the little-known causes behind the Katrina levee
failures, ostensibly using this as a springboard to expose the
rampant collusion, corruption and cronyism within the government
agencies whose very purpose it is to protect us. Between failing to provide proper historical framing for 1965’s Hurricane Betsy and not clearly establishing the expert credentials of many of her subjects, however, Cardé repeatedly shows herself to have no objective sense of aerial docu-storytelling. (At one point, she’s even heard out-of-frame, peppering an interviewee with the penetrating query, “Yeah, what was that about?”) What we have here are loose ends and passionate rants, taped and tied together in whimsical fashion. It’s more than an hour into things before the real underlying point of the film — a call for a fundamental reforming of the manner in which the United States funds water projects — is even directly addressed.

There’s no doubt that the rebuilding of New Orleans, and an overhaul of the Corps of Engineers, remains frustratingly low on the country’s to-do list, even 100 days into the new Obama administration. But Cardé doesn’t have the chops to sustain viewer outrage over this monumental moral failing, and then tie it into the grander issues at play. As a skipped-stone, scatterbrained portrait of how the top leadership of the
Army Corps of Engineers is more concerned with self-serving transitions
into corporate America, how we’ve wasted taxpayer dollars building
other nations’ infrastructures instead of our own, how
lobbyists and politicians funnel money to pet projects, and how
those sent to investigate financial misappropriation are bribed into
silence or simply don’t do their jobs, this documentary more or less works, in air-quote fashion. But any frothy rage or eagerness to make a change dissipates on contact, as soon as the credits roll. And that’s a shame, honestly, because truth be told, we should be pissed off.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, America Betrayed is presented in an enhanced 16×9 aspect ratio, and includes a nine-minute interview with Cardé, seven-and-a-half minutes of bonus
interviews, a filmmaker biography, film resource guide and trailers for three other First Run titles, including the superb Constantine’s Sword. To purchase the DVD, click here. C- (Movie) B- (Disc)

With James Toback’s Mike Tyson documentary hitting screens and Fighting in theaters this weekend, it seems something pugilistic is in the air, so it’s as good a time as any to assay Fight Night, a new straight-to-video release that’s part con man roadshow, part femme-centric, bloodied-lip Never Back Down-type programmer, and part unlikely bonding tale. All in all, though quite obviously cramped by limited production means, this movie connects as at least a solid indie jab, courtesy of some effectively engaging performances, smarter-than-average plotting and fun dialogue.

A lonely drifter on the run from a past best forgotten, con man Michael Dublin (Chad Ortis, smoking theatrically) works the underground fight club circuit, moving from one scam to another and leaving a trail of enemies in his wake. When he gets his ass saved one night by down-and-out Katherine Parker (Rebecca Neuenswander, above, a total ringer for The Biggest Loser‘s Jillian Michaels), a female fighter with the skills to take down a man twice her size, Dublin seizes upon his best scam scheme yet. Rigging fights in reverse, the two — uneasy partners through and through — hit the road, working fights in seedy basement bars, backwoods county fairs and rundown warehouses. Eventually, though, Dublin’s shady past catches up with them, raising the stakes higher than they’d imagined possible.

Fight Night is billed as an action flick, and understandably so — there’s a reason its title was changed from Rigged, its original moniker — but that’s not where most of its appeal lies. In truth, the fisticuffs are frequently muddled to the point of being ridiculous, boring, or both, with odd angles and botched edits betraying the logic of the action. In scenes of inaction, though, the film is actually quite nicely photographed, and powered by a snarky, Moonlighting-style rapport between its leads. On the surface, Ortis’ Dublin is too smirky by about a third, but one eventually warms to it, especially since Parker frequently gets to call him out on his behavior, generally denigrating him and cracking on “that cock-holster you call a mouth.”

If that brings a wince, yes, it’s true, Ian Shorr’s script loads up on finger-snapping dialogue (“Hey, I don’t care who you rock the casbah with, kitty cat,” says Dublin to Parker, “but we’re business partners now…”) that could — and, well, kind of does — undercut some of the heavier dramatic stuff that comes into play as the movie wears on. But Neuenswander and Ortis have a nice chemistry, and director-editor Jonathan Dillon stages the more character-centric scenes in a way that makes you lean forward a bit. The end result isn’t high art, perhaps, but it outclasses the baser solicitations of its cover box art, shows all-for-one spirit and effort on the part of its makers, and is certainly better than it has a right to be, given the budget and other means.

Presented in a 16×9 widescreen aspect ratio, along with English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio tracks, Fight Night comes housed in a regular plastic Amaray case. English and Spanish subtitles are also included. Despite the touted press release inclusion of a production featurette, digital copy of the movie and an accompanying photo gallery, there aren’t such inclusions on the DVD. Special features instead include five-plus minutes of deleted scenes, the movie’s trailer and an audio commentary track with Dillon, cinematographer Hanuman Brown-Eagle and… gaffer/gopher Jason Cantu!

This sounds weird, I realize, but that combination works, even if Dillon misidentifies his movie right out of the gate, calling it Fight Nights, plural. Not having the two leads, and in particular Neuenswander, robs the track of any sort of serious discussion or insight about the characters, or acting on display, but this trio have a lot of anecdotes to share about the film’s November-December 2005 Kansas shoot, and the fratty but not overly self-aggrandizing warmth of their reminiscences makes even a few barbed oblique asides (“If you can afford it, get an art department that brings you some options,” Dillon says at one point) sound not really that assholish, especially since they suffered arrests and other run-ins with the police due to filming without permits. Other tidbits gleaned? An important location house was once owned by Howard Hughes, and the car used in the film was a graduation gift from Dillon’s grandfather, with its trunk doubling as the production’s wardrobe storage. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)

I don’t think I had unreasonable expectations. After all, any movie that claims as its top selling point the fact that it features “top MTV reality personalities and other up-and-coming celebrities” is obviously not likely a candidate for enshrinement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Still, I humbly and sincerely submit that American High School is a movie every bit as terrible as if not worse than the single worst American high school experience of any teenager of the past quarter century. It is a war crime in celluloid form.

It’s the final week of senior year, and everything is coming to a head. Distressed SoCal high schooler Gwen (Jillian Murray, in a departure from her role in Disney Channel’s upcoming TV series Sonny with a Chance) and her exhibitionist husband (yep, you read that right) Holden Adams (Talan Torriero) are perhaps headed for divorce. Gwen’s rich and popular rival, described as “a devil with a vagina,” is Hillary Weiss (Aubrey O’Day, Danity Kane pop princess turned Playboy cover girl), a scheming manipulator who’ll do anything to both nab the prom queen crown and steal Holden away. Toss in a diminutive principal (Martin Klebba, because dwarves equal automatic laughs, right?), a vapid art teacher who inexplicably dresses in lingerie (Nikki Ziering, former Playboy Playmate and jock-warmer to Beverly Hills
90210 star Ian Ziering) and two trash-talking himbos (James Foley and Brian Drolet, of The Hills) who go by the monikers Matt Mysterio and Jonny Awesome. Then mix along with a handful of other slutty associates and students, scramble nonsensically, and serve, steaming.

I don’t at all mind “dumb” comedy, and can even forgive production values compromised by a low budget, but American High School is idiotic and infuriating because there’s absolutely no interior logic to its story, nor does it work in any way, shape or form as a series of discrete hormonal sketches. Right out of the box, Gwen is pegged as “unpopular,” when there’s hearty evidence to the contrary. The movie treats her marriage to Holden as neither legitimate and sincere, nor satirical, so it never really makes any sense that Gwen would be concerned about what peers to whom she’s tethered for only one more year claim to think of her. This fact — a huge story point — is emblematic of the lack of attention and thought given the narrative. Let’s see… what else is never adequately explained? A few parts of the movie unfold in direct-address to a webcam. Male students wander around without shirts, and sometimes run assemblies. Oh, and the principal is a hornball who plays grab-ass with an exchange student, which only seems to further turn on his secretary.

None of these bits are clever, genre-tweaking satire, though, a la Not Another Teen Movie. Sometimes the absurdity is accepted, sometimes commented upon. All the jokes and dialogue, meanwhile, are uniformly awful, and there’s simply nothing here, no overall through line or purpose. To dull the pain, about halfway through the movie I started pounding rum-and-Cokes, but it wasn’t enough to summon laughter, alas. There’s only one truly funny moment in the movie, and it comes in the first 20 minutes or so and lasts all of two seconds; it’s when Klebba’s principal allows himself a moment of quiet self-satisfaction after using the school’s P.A. system, and murmurs, “Another amazing announcement.” The single other time I laughed or cracked a smile occurred when a gummy-tacked wall poster fell down in the background of a long shot, and then immediately reappeared in the next shot. Oh, and for the record, to those in the under-17 set just looking for some cheap boobs-and-butt action, Ziering provides the movie’s only nudity (though, as mentioned,
there’s lots of shirtlessness on the guys’ parts too), but her enormous, surgically enhanced breasts are matched in their unnerving nature by her plasticized face; it’s all a non-starter, fellas.

Housed in a white, regular plastic Amaray case, American High School comes presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English subtitles for the deaf and hearing-impaired, who’ve never had it so lucky as when missing all the lame, ADR-appended air-quote jokes crammed along this movie’s edges. The chief supplemental feature is a feature-length audio commentary track with writer-director Sean Patrick Cannon, producer Raquel Tolmaire, and actors Murray, Drolet,
Ashley Ann Cook and Nick Shakoour. Cannon repeatedly says “I like this,” scene after scene, and talks a lot about how he favors triangular composition, like he’s the next Orson Welles. Everyone else seems rather (surprisingly) genuinely stoked by the results; there’s precious little talk of budgetary compromise or production hardships, though Murray scores a few points for honesty by pointing out (the very visually obvious) microphone pack on her leg in one scene. Other bonus features consist of a TV spot and the theatrical trailer, along with 19 more excruciating minutes of deleted scenes and an alternate ending, all with optional audio commentary from Cannon and his actors. If for some reason you still feel the need to purchase the film on DVD, via Amazon, click here. F (Movie) C (Disc)

Part of the “American Experience” series, A Class Apart: A Mexican American Civil Rights Story runs approximately one hour, and highlights the landmark 1950s Supreme Court case that redefined civil rights for Mexican Americans in the United States. Award-winning producers Carlos Sandoval (Farmingville) and Peter Miller (Sacco and Vanzetti) tell the historic tale of how a small-town Texas murder case spurred the Mexican American civil rights movement and helped end Jim Crow-style discrimination throughout the Southwest.

In the tiny town of Edna, Texas, in 1951, field hand Pete Hernandez killed tenant farmer Joe Espinosa after exchanging words in a gritty cantina. From this seemingly unremarkable small-town murder emerged a landmark civil rights case that would forever change the lives and legal standing of tens of millions of Americans. This film tells the little-known story of a band of underdog Mexican American lawyers who took their case, Hernandez v. Texas, all the way to the Supreme Court. In the unprecedented case, the attorneys forged a daring legal strategy, arguing that Mexican Americans were essentially “a class apart,” and therefore did not neatly fit into a legal structure that heretofore recognized only blacks and whites. As various legal skirmishes played out, the lawyers emerged as brilliant, dedicated and humorous men, although A Class Apart doesn’t shy away from showing their flaws as well.

Documentaries like A Class Apart are eye-opening not the least because they exist on the edges of any sort of polite distillation of social upheaval one might typically find in regular middle and high school textbooks. With clarity, heartrending humanity and even mordant wit, when appropriate, this film dramatically interweaves the disparate stories of its central characters
— activists and lawyers, returning veterans and ordinary citizens,
murderer and victim — within the broader history of Latinos in the United States. At a time when immigrants are again being vilified in some corners of public discourse, it’s an important reminder that efforts to ensure America’s actions match its rich, inspiring rhetoric must never cease.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, A Class Apart is presented in 16×9 widescreen, and comes with a superb slate of supplemental features, anchored by a making-of featurette that includes interviews, photographs and behind-the-scenes footage. In addition to special material for educators and a clutch of bonus scenes, there’s also a slideshow of photographer Russell Lee’s iconic images of Mexican American life in the late 1940s. Naturally, Spanish subtitles and a Spanish language audio track are also included as well. To order A Class Apart, or any DVD release from PBS Home Video, call (800) PLAY-PBS or click here. B+ (Movie) B+ (Disc)

Over the last five years or so, while still occasionally taking the skulking, low-key, payday gig (Quarantine, Prom Night), actor Johnathon Schaech has quietly branched out into screenwriting, setting himself up for a chance, at least, at a successful second act in Hollywood as a reliable, single-stop peddler of low-budget, direct-to-video genre fare. I say single-stop because in his latest movie, The Poker Club, Schaech assumes multiple roles, nabbing a prominent on-screen role as well as several behind-the-scenes credits.

Directed by Tim McCann (Nowhere Man, Runaway), The Poker Club centers around secrets lies, and ill-advised decision-making. For years, Aaron Tyler (Schaech) has been getting together on Monday evenings with his three best friends to play poker. One night, though, everything changes forever; a burglar breaks into Aaron’s house, and the men accidentally kill him. Fearing the consequences, Aaron and his pals dispose of the corpse and agree to take the secret to their graves. Soon, however, they discover that someone else knows what they’ve done, and is now playing a murderous game of revenge with them.

Johnny Messner, Loren Dean, Michael Risley, Scrubs‘ Judy Reyes, Lori Heuring (with whom Schaech has a naked history), and Jana Kramer all co-star in this streamlined flick, which obviously cops moves from panic-infused cover-up tales like I Know What You Did Last Summer and its sequels, as well as Very Bad Things. In fact, The Poker Club could use a little of that latter film’s wild, trippy energy, because too frequently the plotting here feels like laid track, and the twists and turns thus little but pulled levers. Perhaps there was a more acutely sketched sense of betrayal and intrigue in Ed Gorman’s popular horror novel, from which the movie is adapted. The writing team of Schaech and Richard Chizmar (who penned the sequel to Roadhouse, in which Schaech also starred) comes up with some nice wheel-spinning dialogue for when the bitterness and recrimination between friends really comes to a boil, but McCann — while piecing things together nicely in a few charged what-do-we-do scenes, and generally making effective use of music — is overall unable to come up with a compelling, unifying visual scheme for the film.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, The Poker Club comes presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language 5.1 Dolby digital audio track and optional subtitles in only English, French and Chinese, which runs somewhat counter to both the title’s easily translated genre thrills and poker’s reputation as a burgeoning worldwide hobby. The sole supplemental feature is a feature-length audio commentary track with Schaech and director McCann, but the pair have an easy rapport that makes their chat go down fairly smoothly. It’s also an instructive listen for would-be filmmakers and on-the-rise line producers, as various means of cost-effectiveness are frequently addressed. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) C+ (Disc)