High School

"Drugs, fornicating, a grown man singing about his feelings, it's time we win this war, expunge this school of all dope fiends." Henry Burke (Bush) has everything going for him. He has a scholarship to MIT and is in line to be his classes valedictorian. After an accident leads to detention he is brought back together with his old friend Travis (Marquette). They decide to take a break that night and unwind with a joint. After the school's representative in the national spelling bee loses it on TV the principal (Chiklis) institutes a mandatory drug test for everyone in the school. Fearing he will lose everything Henry and Travis come up with a plan. I am not really a fan of "stoner' comedy (I did like the Harold & Kumar movies) but the plot to this and the cast made it seem interesting to me. I was not disappointed. Adrien Brody is very funny as the man they steal from and Colin Hanks is good as a clueless asst. principle but Michael Chiklis steals the movie. Playing a clueless borderline pervert in charge of the school he is perhaps the funniest clueless principal since Ed Rooney. This is a very different style of stoner comedy and it is more like "Girl Next Door" then "Pineapple Express". This is nothing amazing but I enjoyed it and laughed quite a bit. Overall, a funny movie you can just put in and not think about, those are fun sometimes. I give it a B.

Normally I am not keen on the 'stoner comedies', as I have seen a good share and most of them have been pretty boring, lacking comedy and basically not really been worth watching. But the cast list credited to this movie made me sit down and give it a chance.

And "High School" really surprised me as it turned out to be the best of all the 'stoner comedies' I have ever suffered through.

The story is about Henry (played by Matt Bush) who is a student with great grades and about to makes it to MIT, but in a moment of weakness he tried smoking weed with his childhood friend Travis (played by Sean Marquette). Unfortunately the high school they are attending implements mandatory drug testing for the following day, in lieu of a former spell bee champion from the school making headline news from being high on drugs during the competition. Coming up with a clever plan, the two friends decide to drug the entire school, to make everyone fail the drug tests, and end up stealing drugs from Psycho Ed (played by Adrien Brody). The following day becomes a chaotic race against time, as principal Leslie Gordon (played by Michael Chiklis) is piecing together what is really going on.

I will say that the story was cleverly thought through, and it had some nice moments. Sadly, though, this is not the type of comedy that will have you laughing hard throughout the entire movie. I laughed only a couple of times. But it is the type of comedy that is fun to watch and entertaining.

As for the cast list, the reason why I decided to watch this movie, well I must applaud Adrien Brody for his performance in this movie. He played the role of Psycho Ed so well, and it was a sheer joy to watch him in this movie. But also hats off for Michael Chiklis for his portrayal of the oddly behaving principal. It was very surreal to see these two in a movie like this and have roles like this. But they did a tremendous job, and they really carried the movie.

If you enjoy the 'stoner comedy' genre, then you definitely have to treat yourself to this movie, because it is really great.

And with that, I will leave you with a great quote from principal Leslie Gordon: "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this footage should be worth a thousand pictures. Which would equal a million... words."

Smoking makes most everything funny, and many will have a go-to selection of movies that pair especially well with pot. It's surprising, then, that movies about weed don't automatically fit into that category. If you've ever been sober in a room full of smokers you know that watching other people get stoned just ain't that funny, and it's even more difficult for a movie to impart a contact high.

Fortunately, High School straddles the divide between "stoner movie" and "movie to watch while stoned", because it's very, very funny. The plot is a lean, generic high school story - Henry (Matt Bush) is the straight-A valedictorian, tempted astray just before graduation by stoner and one-time friend Travis (Sean Marquette) after a chance accident lands them in detention. Henry tries pot for the first time, just as Principal Gordon (Michael Chiklis) is about to call for a school-wide drug test after a spelling bee incident embarrasses his school's good name. Henry and Travis plan to foil the drug test by getting the whole school high on drug savant Psycho Ed's (Adrian Brody) ultra-potent supply.

The setup is goofy but handled lightly and with a relatively straight face, which already distinguishes the movie from pure stoner material like How High or Cheech and Chong. The laughs come early and often, not relying too much on stoner tropes (although they're around if you want 'em) or character mugging, but on good, old-fashioned gags. The pace is a little uneven, perhaps because the script runs very tight around the speedy storyline, but the comedy is not.

Brody is given plenty of space to go wild; by the end his influence on the film is much bigger than his screen time. The same could be said on a lesser scale for Colin Hanks as vice-principal Brandon and Yeardley Smith as a teacher, who do typically fine jobs. Bush and Marquette, the two young leads, hold up their end of the bargain very well.

This is a movie that deserves to find wide distribution. If Pineapple Express, a perfectly entertaining movie in its own way, can find a decent audience, then for this to be left on the shelf is criminal. If you get the chance and you're even remotely curious, see it. Once again: it's very, very funny.

Seriously, this was an AWESOME and a really fun and funny movie! A great film, even right from the very second the movie studio company names came on screen. Funny throughout and it was a decent length, not like some of these new comedies/films that just make it past an hour, this makes it the full hog!

From a 24 yo guy (with a wicked sense of humour) that watched this un-stoned for the first time, well it was funny as f^ck! Can't wait to blaze up for the second watch!

As to all the hate/res, WHAT!? the hell man!? I see many haters hating, but not reviewing, as there's really nothing that bad you can say about this film. You could almost go as far to call this masterpiece a great 'family' movie... I mean is there not enough quotable jokes and analogies in here for you all? Was the fine acting, by all, BUT WOW was Adrien Brody SOOOOOOOO good, not enough? This movie made me search more with him in it, as well as a bunch of the other actors/crew!

In my opinion this will become a cult CLASSIC stoner film! But saying that, I understand these 'new-age-hipster' stoners think it's not cool to just have fun and relax, hence why they don't find movies like Smiley Face funny (if you haven't watched Smiley Face high, you haven't seen it). I know as a community of potheads we are changing the 'cheech-chong-hippie' image to something more 'suit-like' and 'get-it-legal' type image, but I beg of you all, let us not forget that weed shouldn't be taken so seriously as to not allow ourselves to unwind and laugh at pointless nonsensical feats of 'wisdom'... at least from time to time. I get the 'legal' stance, hell, I'm actively doing something to make it legal, but it doesn't mean we should wear these hats 24/7/365, that in itself couldn't be healthy. Just remember to unplug and laugh once in a while... :)

I highly recommend you all give it a chance, I'm sure there's so much going on in it, that by the end, you'll feel you could just rewind (if we all still did that) and start it from the beginning, all over again.

To cast and crew, WOW, thanks for making a rare 'modern' stoner classic. Adrien Brody, that performance deserved an Oscar! I'd love to see a sequel. But regardless, it's right up there, probably higher than some of the best of them - think How High type funny, quiet possibly funnier.

Hope this helps some of you!

The first 35 minutes of High School is some of the most comedy I have seen this year. Yea its in the vein of the Apatow/Seth Roganequse vein of witty banter and ridiculous situations. Unfortunately this films script is so sub plot ridden and contrived it losses me at a lot of places and as the movie goes on the novelty stops working.

Slacker/Stoner/High School Outcast films can work on many levels as character pieces, comedies, faux-action, satires, dramas, romances etc etc, there is very little that hasn't been tried and there is very little that hasn't had a good variation of said sub-genre. High School tries to do it all and its got that copy paste feel only a lazy screenplay can have.

Once again, there are some weird good things about this film, the people being high isn't always super over blown. Matt Bush owns his role pretty well. While Brody and Chikilas are over the top and having fun with what they have to do but it doesn't go anywhere there isn't anything new but at the same time its too all over the place to be a homage to stoner films of yesteryear.

If you like stoner comedies its worth a rental and there is stuff to laugh at but there isn't much of comfort zone in between laughs and boredom.

5/10