HIGH SCHOOL – Sundance Movie Review
HIGH SCHOOL is the comedy stoner movie at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It has everything that you might expect to see and has the potential to have great commercial success.
HIGH School follows the story of valedictorian Henry Burke (Matt Bush) who tried marijuana for the first time the day before the school’s principal, Principal Gordon (Michael Chiklis) institutes a zero-tolerance policy against drug use. He implements a mandatory drug test for all the students to be administered the next day, failure of which will result in immediate expulsion. With his college scholarship hanging in the balance, Henry teams up with pothead Travis Breaux (Sean Marquette) in order to do the only thing they can think of in order to prevent Henry from being expelled – get the entire school stoned.
I think you can only imagine the kind of hilarious situations these two get into. From Adrien Brody’s crazy drug dealer, Psycho Ed to Michael Chiklis’ portrayal of the smarmy principal, this is definitely a movie that you can have a lot of fun watching. I mentioned Adrien Brody, who is the absolute funniest part of the film. It’s such an insane character, that you can’t help but love watching him. I almost wish he was in the movie more. Michael Chiklis is unrecognizable (it actually took me a second to realize it was him) as Principal Gordon. He is so yucky but such a great comedic way that it makes the whole school on drugs thing even funnier.
The dynamic between Henry and Travis is really well done and they just come up with the most outrageous stuff in order to get out of the most absurds situations. Colin Hanks has some great scenes in HIGH School, especially when he ends up as high as the students at the school. I also want to mention Adhir Kalyan, who plays Sebastian Saleem, Henry’s nemesis. I have been a fan of his ever since seeing him in Aliens in America and he isa pretty entertaining nemesis in HIGH School. Finally, there is a small but funny cameo by Michael Vartan, who plays a teacher at the school who gets high as a result of Henry and Travis’ plan. Again, another wacky scene.
Overall, if this is the type of movie that makes you laugh, then I think you’re going to enjoy it. There is no deep message or anything like that, it’s pure entertainment, but if that’s what you’re looking for, you might have a great time watching HIGH School.
