The Wackness (2008)

Wonderful character development!

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

I can only say that this is a must-watch movie.I'm not the guy who likes romantic movies, but mixture of drama, comedy and romance here is just brilliant, it makes you feel those crush feelings from when you were a teenager again. Characters are so simple, yet very interesting, Josh Peck/Ben Kingsley/Olivia Thirlby trio really did magnificent job. I liked the soundtrack.Advice: It's an easy dinner, make yourself a good and quiet atmosphere when you are watching it.

The insecure teenager is a recurrent theme that has already been developed, more or less successfully, a lot of times. With a hip hop and weed background, The Wackness reunites all of its clichés without managing to convince the viewer. The script is banal on every level and lacks consistency, coherence, order and dynamism to expect to arouse just a bit of interest. The plot struggles rather quickly, so much that finishing the 1h35 is a real ordeal.If there was one thing to save, it would be the excellent soundtrack, because without that, the movie would be a complete flop. Jonathan Levine, of whom it was the first experience as a director and writer, proved however three years later with 50/50 that he has potential.

Coming-of-age stories come in all forms, though one would expect a New York City drug dealer at the height of hip-hop in the mid '90s to have already experienced a loss of innocence. For Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck), however, dealing pot is just a summer job, and for all his street cred, he's a lonely dude unexperienced in the ways of love.Jonathan Levine's "The Wackness" tells that typical story of a last summer before college, but clichés don't run wild thanks to a re-calibrated the moral compass. Something's off with each of his three main characters; they're not the most likable or at the least morally sound, which provides a challenge for the actors in terms of generating sympathy.Sir Ben Kingsley seems to really enjoy that challenge. He plays Dr. Squires, Luke's shrink whom Luke pays in pot. Unconventional doesn't quite describe Squires; everything about Kingsley's performance feels unpredictable and spontaneous, but deeply rooted in a mid-life crisis. He projects a desire to be in Luke's place in the way he offers advice, which sometimes is misguided and sometimes spot-on. Both, however, share loneliness at different stages in life and therefore become friends.As much as Dr. Squires urges Luke to sow his oats, however, he also wants Luke to stay away from his step daughter Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby) for unclear but certainly hypocritical reasons. A popular girl with inattentive parents, Stephanie's well-versed in many things, including boys, but she takes interest in Luke's charms. Their relationship doesn't necessarily feel right in the fairy tale sense, but it does feel true-to-life because more often than not, there's a discrepancy in the amount of life experience two people have, especially at 18.This dictates the essence of Levine's message, though one wrapped in a complicated shell built of excessive drug use and morally misguided activities. For Levine, coming of age is about accumulating experience, both positive and negative, the "dopeness" and the "wackness" as Stephanie tells Luke. The challenge is finding the right perspective, not unlike the perspective with which we need to view some of the characters and their questionable activities in order to appreciate the film.~Steven CVisit my site at http://moviemusereviews.com

Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) is a drug dealer who exchanges marijuana with his therapist (Ben Kingsley) for sessions. Life is simple but good, until two conflicts emerge: the family home may be foreclosed on, and Luke is falling for the therapist's step-daughter. Are you ready for some young adult drama? The film's title, and the outlook of the film in general, is explained by character Stephanie: "Know what your problem is, Shapiro? It's that you just have this really shitty way of looking at things, ya know? I don't have that problem. I just look at the dopeness. But you, it's like you just look at the wackness, ya know?" But for me, the film didn't leave much room for anything to be seen besides the wackness. I liked Mary-Kate Olsen, essentially playing herself. Kingsley was an enjoyable character. And having gone through heartbreak, I could identify to a point with Luke. But overall, it didn't really hit home for me the way it apparently did for the Sundance crowd.Or the critics, as it turns out. Roger Ebert gave the movie 3 out of 4 stars and a positive review escaped the fingertips of Peter Travers, collecting 2.5 out of 4 stars. Ben Kingsley's performance earned him a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actor. All three of these seem misplaced -- this is not a three star movie, and if anyone deserves blame, it is not Kingsley.Feel free to watch this. You may like it more than I did. I would give it a second chance, because I want to believe there is more going on than what I saw. But then, when your film is called "The Wackness", maybe I shouldn't be expecting so much.