"Youth in Revolt"
"Youth In Revolt" - RDM: Youth In Revolt is a fun little romp through a make-believe wonderland for its lead, Michael Cera, who plays his affable, sweet-kid persona — some of the time. As Nick Twisp, a teenager in a no-win situation where his mom (Jean Smart) has a revolving door relationship with a bunch of men, including Ray Liotta, who plays slimy guys as good as anyone. Twisp falls hard for a young girl, Sheeni Saunders played by newcomer Portia Doubleday, who is his intellectual equal. Unfortunately, she has a hankering for her current boyfriend — the guy who always gets what he wants — but is secretly crushing for her dream man, who would be a Frenchman. The two teens hit it off well and begin conniving to be together, but only after Twisp lets his alter ego — the swashbuckling and danger-seeking Francois Dillinger, take over when they are together.
DT: When the film started I began to wonder how much longer Cera's going to be able to play teenagers in movies, he's about 22 years old and while he certainly knows what he's doing, he can't go on like this forever and I'm sure he'd love the opportunity to try something different. The part of Francois gives Cera the chance to stretch out and play something new, a disaffected, self-centered and somewhat amoral character. Watching Cera play Francois is one of the chief reasons that I enjoyed this film.
The film is also populated with several enjoyable minor characters, one of my favorites being relative newcomer Adhir Kalyan as Cera's brainy new school friend Vijay Joshi. Zach Galifianakis of "The Hangover" makes an appearance as well as comic genius Fred Willard.
All in all, a nice little film that gets us from beginning to end with enough detours in the plot and enjoyable performances to be a sufficiently entertaining 90 minutes.
DM: I found this movie enjoyable, extremely quirky and fun to watch. With that being said, I am going to go out and recommend it to no one. The plot is an old standby, but because this is so quirky, it won't appeal to many people. Kalyan was, in fact, my favorite guy in the movie. Extremely charming, especially when his language skill set turns on cue from perfectly honed English to a Middle Eastern cadence without missing a beat. What a brilliant comic effect. On the downside, the fact that the language is a little rough around the edges also doesn't endear itself to a date movie was a little bit off-putting to me. The movie is somewhat course at times.
DT: Of course it depends on who you're dating.
DM: You know, that reminds me of my sophomore year in college, when there was this girl who was....
DT: Enough already! Stick to the script.
DM: Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry about that. Sometimes I get caught up in these memories, and I tend to reminisce, like the time that that old guy wandered into a church youth group, spouting off irrelevant axioms about ginger oil and what not. He was this creepy dude who...
DT: You're doing it again.
DM: Doh! Anyhow, back to the flick, It's too bad that people would rather see some idiotic film like the barely watchable Tooth Fairy than a neat little piece like this slice of escapism. One more thing. As is always the case any time there is a Steve Buscemi sighting a movie gets automatically upgraded seven points. Very few actors are awarded this highly dubious distinction with At the Cinema. David Strathairn, J.K. Simmons, David Morse, and of course Wallace Shawn. That's about it. Buscemi is, as always, oddly entertaining. If offbeat movies are your thing, this one is a worthwhile 90 minutes of your life.
Rating: DM: 64, DT: 68.
Remember, all of our scores are based on a scale of 0-100. None of this four-star, thumbs up garbage for us. You deserve better. And, as always, until we meet in the dark, foreboding realm of the theater aisles again, remember the immortal words of Billy Paxton in Aliens, "That's it man, game over."