Assassination of a High School President (2008)

I watched Assassination of a High School President the week it came out on DVD. I really liked it and then some. It's a slightly quirky stream-of-consciousness first-person-narrative student-journalist detective story. I prefer to think of it as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (not Chinatown) meets Brick. While some of the St. Donovan's students' actions are reprehensible -- I'm not talking about Mean Girls but drinking and horndogging -- the movie portrays high-school malefactions quite realistically. Our clean-nosed protagonist and narrator Bobby Funke (Reece Thompson) wants to write a phenomenal investigative article for the school paper so he can wow his way into journalism school. He is trying to be more than lackluster about fulfilling his newbie assignment, a puff-piece profile of the school's conceited star jock (Patrick Taylor). Then the SAT tests are stolen and discovered in the jock's locker -- a muckraker's bonanza! Did he do it -- or was he framed? Did he have accomplices -- or enemies? His girlfriend (Mischa Barton), a valedictorian with bedroom eyes, migrates to Bobby and wryly whispers, "I can tell I'm going to corrupt you." The story's convolutions unwind to a satisfying conclusion. Bruce Willis wins kudos as the edgy principal who is a former Gulf War vet and Josh Pais has a droll role as the priest who teaches Spanish, speaking like Senor Wences on Valium. It's just possible many people have high-school memories very much like what these two authority figures portray on screen. 4.5 stars.