Charlie Bartlett
Directed by Jon Poll
Starring Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey, Jr., Hope Davis
Rated R
Release date: February 22nd, 2008

“Incredible! One of the worst performances of my career and they never doubted it for a second.” – Matthew Broderick, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

“M-I-L-F Mom I’d Like to Fuck!” – John Cho, American Pie

John Hughes is considered one of the greatest minds in teenaged cinema for the past twenty years. Not only did he bring along what we now call The Brat Pack, he helped create the films — The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off are among the many classic high school flicks that teenagers now look at today as classics. That’s true; I consider The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller to be two of the greatest films on the planet (hell, I don’t even want to begin about how many times I pulled off the Ferris Bueller trick”¦ every teenager deserves to watch that).

I’ll admit — there has been a lack of great teenaged comedies today. Out of every good one (American Pie, almost ten years ago), we get about ten bad ones (Accepted and American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile). Usually I wouldn’t be screaming at the top of my lungs asking where all of the good times gone, because I can still watch The Departed and No Country for Old Men and answer my own question, but Christ, where have the good TEENAGED COMEDIES gone?

It seems like an odd way to begin those two paragraphs in a review for Charlie Bartlett, a film about a teenager with ADD just trying to become popular by giving advice and drugs to his classmates. Truth is, no matter how many times they had pushed back Charlie Bartlett, it doesn’t make it any worse. Charlie Bartlett is honestly the best teenaged comedy since American Pie 2. That was seven years ago. Our generation is fucking begging for another film like that. I think it was the perfect time for a film like Charlie Bartlett to come around.

Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin, from Alpha Dog and the upcoming Star Trek XI) is a teenager that was kicked out of every private school that he went to. This was mostly because he was just trying to become popular (he was kicked out of the last school because he was selling fake IDs to students). So his mom (Hope Davis) has no choice — send Charlie Bartlett to public school. Charlie doesn’t see the problem with this first day, but he immediately catches the attention of the high school bully, Murphey (Tyler Hilton). He also attracts Susan Gardner’s (Kat Dennings) attention. Susan is the daughter of Principal Gardner (Robert Downey, Jr.), the super strict principal at the high school Charlie is now attending.

Charlie has finally understood why he isn’t respected at his newest school — he’s a rich kid and everyone else isn’t. Being that he is a rich kid, he has a psychiatrist always on call, so one day, he’s prescribed Ritalin from his psychiatrist. He takes it for three or four days and begins to feel the affects. He figures that if he could sell these drugs to the people he goes to school with, he will be respected by his classmates. He becomes business partners with Murphey and begins selling Ritalin, and within the first day, they sell out. He begins to get more drugs from more psychiatrists by acting like he’s “sick” and begins selling them out to the people he goes to school with. But Principal Gardner sees something weird about this — just who is this Charlie Bartlett kid and why is he so damn popular?

Charlie Bartlett is seriously funny. The jokes almost never fail to make you at least chuckle, and this can mostly be the work of the cast. Anton Yelchin, who already proved his worthiness in last year’s criminally underrated Alpha Dog, does an excellent job as the title character. This character is going to be described as a mix between Ferris Bueller and just about every other high school character played within the last fifteen years, but Charlie Bartlett is unique in his own way. Ferris Bueller was popular to begin with — Charlie Bartlett still has to make a name of himself. Yelchin appropriately adds to the character being a nerd, and he still manages to hook up with a hottie.

Robert Downey, Jr. does a pretty damn fine job also, but I’m afraid that he doesn’t show much range here. He plays the fast-talking drunk, and yes, just like from Zodiac and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. He still does it perfectly, but I came out saying that I’ve seen everything that he has done here before. Hopefully, there isn’t another relapse in Iron Man, but by the way it looks, who the hell knows?

I would have made another paragraph out of this statement, but all I really have to say is”¦ Hope Davis = MILF.

One of the most pivotal scenes in Charlie Bartlett is when he talks to a kid named Kip (Mark Rendall). Kip has been having suicidal thoughts and been depressed lately due to an on-going divorce. This is where Charlie feels the need to go find out more information for Kip and goes to his psychiatrist, asking for pills because he has been depressed lately. The next day, he gives the pills to Kip and lets Kip know that no one has died from overdosing on pills like those, but he still warns him in the end to be careful.

The story later takes a turn for the worse, where Kip tries to kill himself by swallowing the whole bottle of pills. He doesn’t die, but it is mentioned that he got his stomach pumped. The sad thing about this movie is that while it is a teen comedy, it does try and be a little dramatic. Usually I have major problems with this, but Charlie Bartlett is that one rare exception and I can’t actually tell you why, simply because I don’t know why. But as much as it wants to turn into a drama for ten minutes, the drama part is highly unrealistic. I’m sure that most of you all know that if you try to kill yourself by taking a whole bottle of pills, you will probably die. I’m not saying you should go try it out and see what happens, but from the cases that I heard, most people have died from overdosing. Maybe Kip is that one exception, but I doubt it.

As much as I want to let all of you guys know that you should see Charlie Bartlett while it’s in theaters, by the time you get there it will be too late. The opening weekend for the film was weak, opening at number 14 (making about $300,000 LESS than Larry the Cable Guy – fucking rednecks). It’ll probably make less than 50% of last weekend’s gross, which means you won’t find it playing at your cinema next week. But if DVD is the way that you must see it, then so be it.

It’s called Blockbuster. It’s cheaper than a movie ticket and you don’t have to worry about sticky floors.

***½ out of ****