Smartass

15 year old delinquent skater girl Freddie (Joey King) leaves suburban San Diego to join Nick and his group of petty criminal druggies. When a needle is found in the van by LAPD, she takes the fall and in short order, she gets released from jail. It's a rough neighborhood and she skirts danger every step of the way. Meanwhile, Nick is trying to close a deal with Donny.

This is trying to be quirky indie but mostly, it comes off as quirky lowlife stupid. Freddie is suppose to be a smartass but she's not so smart. I don't blame Joey King whom I hope for better things. It's all in the writing. Freddie has no common sense or any sense for that matter. She's written as a smart character who does dumb things. She is too annoying and too self-destructive to root for. Joey King can't play dumb anyways. This could still work as a night road trip through LA but the movie keeps going back to Nick, Donny, and the rest of them. As flawed as Freddie is, Joey King is still compelling enough to make this work but Jena Serbu doesn't know where is the best part of the story.

Joey King portrays a young, rebellious, reckless, and often humorously dimwitted teenager named Freddie on her quest to San Diego, California. However, along her journey, she encounters various strangers and situations often either turning violent, making her more vulnerable, or going everywhere.

Unfortunately, the storytelling and tone deliberately goes everywhere the moment audiences are randomly introduced to various subplots seemingly following the main focus with Freddie. It couldn't decide who to follow, what genres it wanted, what film it wanted to be, and give reasons to care.

There's genuine ideas ridiculously merged together that would've otherwise been another film with better writing. Freddie's story involves some humorous and heartfelt concepts but also strangely darkly humorous and horrifying scenarios with people being unhinged, homicidal, boldly prejudiced, and moronic.

As these stories involving drugs, mischief, and murder collide they're never fully utilized or find their purpose until it's nearly over. But by that time, audiences remain bewildered, unsatisfied, and pity the characters for their ineptness and the film's lackluster focus. It couldn't decide what to do or be long enough to underwhelm the experience.

"Smartass" wasn't smart enough to overshadow its half-witted writing.

I'm pretty easy going with movies, so maybe that's why I enjoyed the movie. I thought Joey King was entertaining in this movie. Overall it was a good movie.

Most of the time, movies that end up being mediocre will at least start strong and present a good premise, but fizzle out, lacking a reasonable ending. This movie does it backwards--the first act is a confusing mess, and the best parts are near the end. Joey King is the main character, and she is pretty grating--the lines they give her to try to make her seem jaded and streetwise are just cringe. In fact, I didn't like ANY of the characters. None of them are well written. I didn't quite understand her motivation either--why was she in this situation? I'd say this one is for the teen audience, but it's a little too messed up. Because the main character doesn't seem to take anything seriously, it's like they are making light of sex trafficking, gang wars, racism, and addiction. They main thing I enjoyed is how she got revenge on one of the characters that did something horrible to her. But since none of the comedy works, I don't see any reason to ever recommend it.

Fans of films like Love and a .45, Natural Born Killers, Killing Zoe, Spun, and those other niche crime thrillers will find quite a delight in this film. Characters are charmingly broken, quick witted, and often borderline sociopaths, but all with seemingly redeeming qualities that won't leave you feeling too guilty for identifying with them, even if just for a moment.

While the titular character often comes off as trying too hard in the role, and there are some snarky bits that feel somehow off, the film is a chaotic thrill ride with interesting characters and story. One part cautionary tale, one part ride-on-the-wild-side, there's enough here to keep just about any fan of the genre occupied.