Maybe this sort of melodrama might work with audiences that think "Dawson's Creek" is profound drama, but for most people it will go by as just another parade of teenage angst on a big screen instead of on the tube. Everyone feels too much, everyone suffers for their sins, everyone cries, and everyone drinks, but no one is the least bit sympathetic. When the two lead boys commit an act of violence on a senior citizen, any hope of the audience giving a damn about either of them ends right there, and nothing is ever mentioned again about the victim's fate! Nothing deserves to be said about the use of a handicapped child as a dramatic prop who exists only to be the target of another contrived dramatic incident you can see coming from the first time he shows up. The only minor saving race comes in the form of Jamie Pressly from "Poison Ivy III" and Playboy magazine note. But she is there playing a character so goody-good that she might as well not be there. Her natural wickedness and mischievous personality on display to great effect in other films goes untapped. In short, too highbrow to be trashy fun, too melodramatic to be serious drama, too contrived to be credible, and not nearly enough Jamie Pressly to be worth renting at a video store.
