Mr. Gibb

Maybe the idea was good, but the result is just plain stupid. Unlikable characters, bad acting, poor direction, slow development and an end that's supposed to be a surprise, but it's just another blunder. I was angry after losing my time watching this crap. I should have stopped after 15 minutes, at most. Mea culpa!

It wasn't awful, but this movie is pretty forgettable. With only a couple of exceptions, the characters came off as two dimensional, their actions made no sense and seemed totally unrealistic. The actors did a passable job with what they had. The dialogue had a few chuckles but largely felt short of witty, and it couldn't seem to commit to comedy and instead comes off as a not so compelling drama with a few comic moments. I will say the end was unexpected to me, but it didn't really make up for the flaws.

Of course, Hayden Panettierre is really hot, and if you enjoy looking at her this movie is probably worth seeing just for that.

This black comedy, kind of in the spirit of "Election", was only released on DVD several years after it was made and under the misleading title "The Good Student". It's a rare movie that instead of having a traditional hero, has more of a flawed "anti-hero", an unpopular high-school teacher (Tim Daly), who is as absorbed in his rather boring subject (US history) as any high-school teacher, but also harbors a not-so-hidden crush on one of his female students (Hayden Pantierre--I suppose it's kind of hard to blame him there though). After he gives her an ill-advised ride home and ends up kissing her, she mysteriously disappears, and he finds himself the prime suspect.

The movie stacks the deck here quite a bit by casting the good-looking and fairly young Daly in the role and also giving him a very attractive love interest more his own age (Paula Devocq). It would have been a lot more brave to cast a guy who LOOKS like a lecherous middle-age creep. He's also seems relatively noble compared to all the other characters in the movie--like the missing girls' father (William Sandler), a car salesman who seems to be using his daughter's disappearance to bolster his business, a cop (Dan Hedaya), who is both overzealous and incompetent, and another female student (Sarah Steele), who mocks "Mr. Gibbs" for his attraction to the missing girl and his interest in "barely-legal" porn, but who turns out to have her own "Lolita" thing going on. The worst perhaps though is a sleazy fellow teacher who confides that he is exchanging grades for sex with his female students.

This movie perpetuates the rather tiresome Hollywood myth that very many high-school teachers are, or would even want to, mess around with their students. Of course, not too many high-school students look like Pantierre, or even Steele. (Interestingly, Hayden Pantierre WAS high-school age when she made this movie, but she definitely doesn't look it. Steele, on the other hand, had played one of the more believable teen characters a few years earlier in "Spanglish" when she was in her "awkward years", but those years were obviously well behind her by this time). Like "Election", this movie does have some effective black comedy and satire, but it is a much more hit-and-miss affair. The movie also has a really great ending, but perhaps it is a little too subtle or ambiguous for many people to appreciate. All in all, this isn't a bad movie though.

It seems I like independent films. Here I am, again, writing a review because I liked this film so much. Loved the amplified sounds of the creaking, older car door, winding down the window, and the rest. Like the moments that fill in backstory and character choices. Like the quick misdirections, and the fact that there's a clear juxtaposition between characters uncomfortable because they know they're treading in dangerous territory, and those that accept their forbidden activities as a natural course of events. Inventive way to start a kidnapping, and was that a big clue just put over her head? Liked the director's choices in blocking, how the camera was often, if not mostly, slightly off center. There were angles, triangles, diagonals, lighting choices that made every shot interesting, to me. For those who have expressed disappointment with the acting, I respectfully disagree. This is a small story about real people. I think every single actor was spot on, and, again, the choices made by either the director or the actors. There are quiet moments that speak volumes. I especially like that we can figure out who the kidnapper is, and we're not dragged through all kinds of red herrings just to fill frames. All the suspects are shown to us, then it's up to us to pay attention. All the clues are there, all the reactions, nuances. You just have to be engaged and follow where this deft little film takes you. It's charming, and that's a word I seldom use in a positive sense. But, in this case, it is very positive. It lures you, leads you, holds you, then let's you go with a very satisfactory ending. Loved it.

Hayden Panettiere is as charming and likable as ever, but when the character disappears, she pretty much does as well. Fans who watch The Good Student because of her top billing and front-and-center placement on the box art will be disappointed by her limited screen time here. Other than that the film wasn't great but wasn't all that bad, much like a lot of films were released in 2006 lol. It was nostalgic and fit in with what I would have enjoyed back in high school, however that was a different time and it didn't age well to 2025 lol, I probably would have given it two stars if Hayden Panettiere wasn't in it lol.