Sundance. Assassination of a High School President.

"For people who thought that Brick was too slangy and obscure, and Veronica Mars too... well, too awesome, I guess... Assassination of a High School President offers a shallower, more cliché-ridden gloss on the adolescent detective concept," writes the AV Club's Noel Murray.

"We'd liked Brick an awful lot, so seeing something that dances to the same beat is both fun - Brett Simon's feature directorial debut is funny and light on its feet - and a reminder that another film took the novelty set-up of noir teenagers and made it into something more than a clever teen movie," writes Alison Willmore at the IFC Blog. "It's a gleeful cartoon and not much more."

"The movie's obvious comparisons, from Lord Love a Duck to John Hughes's cycle of high school comedies to more recently Heathers, Dazed and Confused and Rushmore, of teenage culture told from the perspective of a nebbish outsider, creates a glancing and off-beat quality that proves more appealing than ingratiating," writes Patrick Z McGavin in Screen Daily.

"All in all, director Brett Simon's film is a cute, fun little lark that produces its fair share of chuckles, but it's not going to break the genre mold," writes Jamie Tipps for Film Threat.

Online viewing tip. MTV has clips. Via Coudal Partners.

Posted by dwhudson at January 30, 2008 1:14 PM