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The unfortunate fact is this: The Perfect Score is
a warmed over John Hughes mishmash of teenager stereotypes
that has been bottled up into an MTV-friendly version of Ocean's
Eleven. With any typical film director hired by the one
and only MTV Productions (who gave us the Janet Jackson tit-flash
this weekend during the Super Bowl Half-time Show), this would
be the end of The Perfect Score. But this is Brian
Robbins's follow-up to 2001's Hardball, a film that
the Filmsnobs have wasted plenty of ink in expressing our
fascination with the passion and creativity put into the story
of Coach Coner O'Neil and the children of the Kekambas. Hardball
is a film that shouldn't have been anything more than
a Mighty Ducks in the inner city with Keanu's gambler
subbing for Emilo's drunk driver. But Robbins was so intent
on creating something more to this story that he invested
a great deal of research and time into making these kids someone
that O'Neil could and should and would save. It might have
been insane - chest plugging G-Baby still remains one of the
most brutally random events in recent cinema- but his portrayal
of the inner city, the American education system, and the
circles of illegal gambling were so...sincere that it was
hard not to give the film some credit. We know Brian Robbins
hates the Filmsnobs (As indicated by his rant against on-line
critics in the director's commentary) but his style and gusto
will someday produce a true masterpiece. And while The
Perfect Score does not achieve this level, Robbins is
able to develop a surface-level theme about standardized testing
creating a significant rift in the fabric of our society.
It's hard to say this point makes the film recommendable,
but Robbins' presentation makes it awfully hard to deny.
There are five high schoolers who really need to score well
on the SAT in order to escape some existence or another. There's
Kyle (Chris Evans) the average guy wanting into the Ivy League
to be an architect; his friend Matty (Bryan Greenberg) who
wants needs into college to be near his ever-neglectful girlfriend;
Anna (Erika Christensen) is the overachiever with the overbearing
parents; Francesca (Scarlett Johansson! Our favorite!) is
the Rich Rebel Without a Cause; Desmond (Darius Miles) is
the star basketball player who's smarter than most people
give him credit; and Roy (Leonardo Nam), the unassuming Asian
pothead who is really good with electronics. Okay, I just
spent as much time establishing these characters as the film
does. Fine, and then the plot puts all of them into their
own desperate situations and they try to break into the company
that produces the test. The script, by a group of screenwriters
collectively responsible for Osmosis Jones and the
Robbins-Tollin production One Tree Hill, develop these
characters so underwhelming that they would get kicked out
of The Breakfast Club. Each character is introduced with such
preconceived notions that it's clear that each one will prove
each other (and the audience by default) wrong by the end.
The characters are so beholden to the mechanism of the plot
that they're never really allowed to breathe. And there is
potential. But more on that later. And admittedly, the characters
of any heist flick are required to be purely functional at
some level or another. But there is something additionally
contrived about these characters in The Perfect Score.
Now, the heist flick is as old as celluloid itself, but
The Perfect Score is one of the first to be produced
in the post-Ocean's Eleven era: The soundtrack is poppy
and jazzy, a lot of track shots are used, every situation
is more complicated and overblown than it should be even for
this genre, and each member of the gang has such distinctive
yet insufferable characteristics that they virtually become
walking punchlines. Now I loved O11 as much as anyone
else, but this film already makes me sick of the new trend.
But what's this I hear about Ocean's Twelve...
It's honestly too bad that MTV Productions forced the hand
to create a teenager version of Danny Ocean's antics because
any audience member can tell that Robbins was far more interested
with further implications of this story. And I know that shimes
and I perhaps have higher expectations for Robbins than pretty
much anyone else watching The Perfect Score, but the
first half of the film tips its hat to something greater than
what was actually produced. Roy provides the narration for
the opening montage: A series of diverse students are taking
the SAT. Roy informs us about the process of creating a standardized
test and the assumptions it makes about the students taking
the test. "And they make standardized tests for the standardized
student? Yeah, right", mocks Roy as the camera captures
a pregnant girl trying to fit into a desk and someone walking
through a beeping metal detector. And no one can question
the logic of this setup. There are inherent inequities weaved
into standardized test that will only become magnetized thanks
to the initiatives set forth in Leave No Child Behind. This
is an issue touched upon by the likes of John Singleton, but
I was really hoping that Robbins would go all of the way to
declaring the SAT as the Great Divide of our society. And
then there's a moment where Kyle explains that the SAT once
stood for Standardized Aptitude Test but the makers felt that
was an inaccurate description. What does it stand for now,
he is inquired. "Nothing. It doesn't stand for anything
anymore." That's right. This is just a way to keep us
down, man! I was so excited that I barely noticed the shot
where Robbins pans up Johansson's leg and we see her cherry
panties. Well, I wasn't that distracted. But after
that point, any important message is drowned by the plot.
Sad, because I saw what Robbins wanted to do. He wanted to
make a statement about treating the education system like
a stockyard where the kids are all but forced to walk down
the shoot. He wanted to make a film where the black athlete
was forced to steal a test that he was totally able to take
legitimately but felt too much pressure. He wanted to make
a film where Scarlett Johansson wears cherry-covered underwear.
Oops. Am I still stuck on that?
And let me finish this review with a word about Matthew Lillard.
He is "Kyle's brother" in the film (This is the
listing in IMDb and I can't remember if the script actually
references him by name or not) and his role only takes up
a few scenes. As a matter of fact, I had no idea he was in
the film. But I am slowly becoming serious with my defense
of Lillard. This guy, quite like Robbins behind the camera,
has such a free and goofy sincerity that his shortcomings
as an actor are outweighed by the force he puts behind every
performance. The scene towards the end where he has a heart-to-heart
with his brother is a real surprise. He tells Kyle about how,
at every Christmas for the past ten years, he and their parents
will sit up and talk about his potential as a student. Getting
over the insanity of this moment -they've been doing this
since this kid was seven? - means finding a really
poignant statement about the need for a supportive family.
And Lillard is able to drop the mugging he used for the whole
film to sell it. If only The Perfect Score had dropped
its corporate kid-baiting for a few moments. Then perhaps
the Hardball legacy would have continued.
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