Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on April 2011

This direct-to-DVD Bruce Willis flick might have been viewed as a mildly clever blending of the high-school-angst and noir genres if this had not been done before, and with far greater style and wit, in 2005’s Brick. A nerdy aspiring scribe for the school paper writes an article about the student body president that amounts to character assassination, then realizes he was set up. Willis is the school’s stern, myopic, disciplinarian principal, and plays it for laughs, which veteran filmgoers will know is Willis-speak for “not funny at all.” The rest of the students are broad stereotypes. Snore.