|
Director:
Marcos Siega
Cast:
Nick Cannon, Roselyn Sanchez, Shawn Ashmore, Cheech Marin, Kelly
Hu |
Rating: (1 to 5
stars)
 |
MPAA Rating:
PG-13 for violence, sexual references, drug material and some teen
drinking |
|
Review:
 You
know you're in trouble when your previous movie comes out after
your latest one. This is what happened to Marcos Siega, who's
latest film, an evil little flick called “Pretty Persuasion” came
out a couple of weeks ago. He'd done this thing well before that
for Miramax, who kept in on a shelf for an interminable time.
I guess that in order to do what you want, you have to pay your
dues, and this is Siega doing just that. A new director
supervising a paint-by-numbers script of no creativity whatsoever.
There's nothing here but the latest stereotypes: Jive-talking bike
cop Tracy "Tre" Stokes(Nick Cannon), wants very much to be a
detective like his late dad, but Dad's old partner Captain Victor
Delgado (Cheech Marin), but as expected, won't let him actually
get on a case. This means that he manages to get one anyway, and
since he looks eight to ten years younger than he actually is, he
gets to go to High School all over again.
Sound familier? It's been done at least three thousand times
before. He befriends the in-crowd(Shawn Ashmore, Don McManus,
Geoffrey Pierson et al), falls in love with the beautiful yet
caring Spanish teacher(Roselyn Sanchez) and goes through EVERY
SINGLE plot point in every film of this type, of which there are
two or three a year. The bad guy(Hugh Bonneville) is BRITISH for
crying out loud, how lame is that?
While David Wagner and Brent Goldberg's script is lame as hell,
the acting is pretty decent. Everyone is a professional, and one
of these days most of these people will manage to get something
good. Cannon manages to do pretty well with his thankless role, as
are the high school kids, the other detectives(Kelly Hu and Ian
Gomez), and all those extras. I guess that Cheech Marin will
continue to play cops in order to repent for his days as an
inveterate criminal. There's potential here, but only that.
Give it a miss.
Eric Lurio
|
