Better Review Tomorrow

Fine, I'll admit it, when I think of crime movies I don't think of a bunch of high school aged Asians (one of which is John "Harold" Cho). I know that sounds racist, but I don't mean it that way. Crime movies are supposed to feature mumbling Sicilians or Bible quoting hit men, not Harvard applicants, and thus the MTV (don't judge me) Films movie Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) seems like a bizarre premise for a crime movie.

But, it works.

Much like Election (1999), the movie focuses on the over stressed upper echelon of the high school, and how often times they are not the squeaky clean future rulers of the world they appear to be. And this is how Daric begins a Fight Club like manipulation, taking the Academic Decathletes and insults them, tricks them, and over all uses them to run his various criminal enterprises which go from cheat sheets to cocaine use to a little bit of murder.

I'm kind of surprised, but MTV (A channel I despise for it's lack of music and it's abundance of 'reality' shows) has made two of my favorite high school movies, delivering winning satires of the group I avoided contact with, the Valedictorians, mainly because one broke my heart, but that's a story for another day.

Furthermore, this movie, and Justin Lin directs one heck of a movie, capturing the actors with a brilliant use of wide angles and close ups that would make Sergio Leone proud. The editing is (pardon the pun) fast and furious, capturing the 'on the edge' style of the lives of the characters.

The acting is superb, with all the actors bringing a true sense of high school angst to their respective roles, but the screen is mainly occupied by Parry Shen as Ben, who plays the classic crime archetype of "Well meaning Guy sucked into crime" See Michael Corleone, Henry Hill, The Narrator from Fight Club, etc. And as the rule of crime movies goes, the "WmGsiC" must go down, and that is no different here.

For anyone that has had the honor of listening to one of my rants on Heathers (1989), they know my lack of love for that movie comes from it's lack of like able characters, horrid script, etc. This movie succeeds where Heathers fails, where the latter fails to make the satiric points it strives for, Better Luck Tomorrow beautifully mixes Fight Club, Goodfellas and Election to create an amazing High school satire, and an interesting crime movie to boot.

Dr. Brooklyn says: LIKE this movie (9/10)