Underclassman movie review & film summary (2005)

Turns out the murder is connected to a student car-theft ring, which is linked to drugs, which is an indictment of the rich students and their rich parents. It is a melancholy fact that a brilliant movie about high school criminals, Justin Lin's "Better Luck Tomorrow" (2002) got a fraction of the promotional support given to this lame formula film. If the teenagers going to "Underclassman" were to see "Better Luck Tomorrow," they'd have something to think about and talk about and be interested in. "Underclassman" is a dead zone that will bore them silly while distracting them with the illusion that a lot of stuff is happening.

Why couldn't the movie have at least tried to do something unexpected, like making Tracy a good student? It's on autopilot: It makes him into a phenomenal basketball player (so good, most of his shots are special effects) and has him telling a classmate over dinner: "In my old neighborhood, crabs were not something you eat." Another food joke: A popular white student (Shawn Ashmore) mentions Benedict Arnold. "He makes good eggs," Tracy says. If he knows about eggs benedict, he knows about crab cakes. But never mind. He also gets involved in a linguistic discussion of the difference between "up their a---s" and "on their a---s."

The movie is multi-ethnic but guess which ethnic group supplies the stooges, villains and fall guys. There's a cute Asian student (Kelly Hu) who helps Tracy a lot, and a sexy Latino teacher (Roslyn Sanchez) he wants to date (he's dying to tell her he's not really a student). And the plot asks us to believe that behind the murder is a conspiracy involving the local white establishment. Uh, huh. The white establishment in a rich Los Angeles neighborhood has ways to make (or steal) lots more money in business, without having to get involved in street crime.

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