Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) has just graduated from high school and is spending his last summer in New York City dealing drugs. He trades drugs for therapy with Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley), where he tries to deal with some of his social issues. All while trying to get with Squires’ step-daughter, Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby).

I have been semi-psyched for this movie ever since I noticed all the rave reviews it was getting from all the sites I read when it was shown earlier this year at Sundance. Unfortunately I was unable to attend, due to many factors, like a lack of funding and a lack of an invitation.

Let’s start with what I liked. I liked the soundtrack a lot. When I was ten I was deep into the rap scene. Notorious B. I. G. was my favourite rapper of back then and it was great to hear some tracks from him, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and KRS-ONE for the first time in a while. I loved the anti-social and somewhat depressing nature of the protagonist, Luke. Olivia Thirlby is definitely one of the better actresses when it comes her playing the teen girl role (she did it here, and in “Juno”). I even liked Method Man and his lame Jamaican accent, which I found more funny than offending.

What I did not like was that the movie felt too short for me. With it already at 110 minutes, I still felt like I wanted more. Not to say that the story wasn’t resolved by the end, there was character progression we learnt a lot about the superficiality of high school and how some people aren’t there to be for you but rather just to fill time. I didn’t like some of Dr. Squires’ character, especially when he gets thrown in jail with Luke kind of lame and not very appealing to me.

The movie however does deliver a pretty not so old high school love story to us that we’ve seen before but not enough of. Which I like, because I am tired of the boring and predictable love story that we always seem to get from these kind of films. I was also really happy the way they blended the drug dealing and hip hop culture into the character of Luke Shapiro.

Overall I think this movie is one that can wait for DVD. It is very overrated to me [with Neil Miller of FilmSchoolRejects giving it an A, and Peter Sciretta of /Film giving it a 9/10], but still not anywhere near bad. I liked it and it has its good points, but at the same time I felt that I could’ve gotten more out of it.

IMDB says 7.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 63%

I say 7.0/10