An acid-tongued, comedically inflected mystery with attitude to spare, Assassination of a High School President is a fun, engaging recasting of high school angst and adolescent friendships and liaisons, in all their white-hot heat — and not merely because of the awesome-adjacent name of its director, Brett Simon. Sharply acted and powered by some clever writing, the movie is an unblinking, straight-faced send-up of noir conventions, and the heightened stakes and skulking, fringe’s-edge energy of the best of those genre pictures meshes surprisingly well with Simon’s private school setting, and its hidden machinations.
Set at tony St. Donovan’s, the film takes as its protagonist sophomore newspaper reporter Bobby Funke (Reece Thompson, above in
background), a hard-charging quasi-outcast who is assigned by editor-in-chief Clara (Melanie Diaz) to
write a cover story on popular class president, National Merit scholar and soccer team captain Paul Moore (Patrick Taylor). After a stack of SAT tests is stolen from the office of Principal Kirkpatrick (Bruce Willis), a hard-as-nails war veteran, Bobby publishes an expose that names Paul as the prime suspect, which brings him notoriety and acclaim — and even an audience with Paul’s now ex-girlfriend, a slinky senior named Francesca (Mischa Barton) who continually (along with other characters) mispronounces Bobby’s surname.
Feeling pressure from a journalistic rival, the sniveling Tad Goltz
(Aaron Himelstein), and starting to question the motivations of erstwhile vice
president Marlon (Luke Grimes, of Brothers & Sisters), who is also Francesca’s step-brother, Bobby begins to doubt the star jock’s guilt. Something doesn’t quite add up. When further investigation uncovers a campus-wide conspiracy that threatens to take down students and teachers alike, Bobby must decide whether or not to tell the truth and risk a prestigious journalistic summer internship, or simply enjoy the social upgrade that his work has afforded him.
The feature directorial debut of Simon, Assassination of a High School President is written by Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski, a pair of former production assistants on South Park. What’s right about the movie mostly starts with Thompson, so striking in the underrated Rocket Science, and a wry anchoring presence here in a filmic exercise whose hearty stylistic leanings could have otherwise tipped over into irritation quite quickly. With its canted dialogue delivery and recasting of high school as both a riddle to be solved and a dangerous, hormonally charged swamp of criminal plotting, the movie strongly recalls the imaginative Brick.
The plot, part Chinatown mystery, part The Usual Suspects shell game (both heartily copped to as influences in interview material with the writers), is a take-it-or-leave-it affair that might be too cute by half for some, but it’s mainly the involving style of the film and its barbed dialogue, along with Thompson’s engaging performance, that seduces. Sometimes bits and pieces of Bobby’s moody voiceover narration errs on the side of juvenilia (“Their alibis were like Dutch ovens — gamey, but airtight”), but the banter and other little asides smartly inform the characterizations (“I coached English for two seasons” boasts Michael Rapaport’s dimwitted instructor, also in charge of the soccer team), and hold one’s attention up through an ending that will feel familiar to anyone who chafed at the less well reasoned of high school’s rules and constraints.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Assassination of a High School President comes presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track that too frequently comes across as mixed low, both in dialogue and upper register ambient noise. Extracurricular activities on the disc include 20 minutes of extended and alternate
scenes, and another seven minutes of deleted scenes, all with optional commentary from the aforementioned writers. Also included is an alternate opening sequence, part of a much longer tracking shot, which Calpin and Jakubowski explain had to be trimmed for the sake of out-of-the-gate clarity. Preview trailers for Fragments, Year One and a handful of other films are also included. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B- (Disc)