Our Boy Now Reviews Films

The Wackness

Director: Jonathan Levine

2008

This sound track is soooo good, that it actually helps you follow the story. It’s a mixture of 90s hip-hop (A Tribe Called Quest, Notorious B.I.G) along with Sir Ben Kingsley’s character’s 60’s collection (some Neil Young and possibly some Grateful Dead). Teenager Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) is a drug dealer, he doesn’t like his life, he can’t get laid and he isn’t very popular. I probably wouldn’t like him either if I met him; he seems like a bit of a pussy (cat). Sir Ben Kingsley is his psychiatrist, their relationship grows throughout the movie, and you get a warm fuzzy feeling when you know they’re true blue buddies. Mary Kate Olsen has a cameo as a weird hippy chick, and Kingsley sorts her out pretty quickly (not psychologically I might add and in a bar too) and she isn’t seen again, which is very suspicious. Had I made this movie I think there would have been a bit more violence, a bit more Mary Kate and possibly, a speedboat chase in there somewhere; but I didn’t make this movie and as it stands, it’s a real metaphor for dealing with the bad, so you can appreciate the good even more - Couch