QAGuy

About the only good thing about this film is that it has apparently put an end to Thalia acting career. You might think that anything Paul Rodriguez and Danny Aiello are in on can't be all bad, but this one comes close. I fast forwarded through over half the movie, and I still didn't miss anything (except maybe the chance to see a good film). An intriguing premise falls apart under the weight of a witless script and wooden performances. Just say no.

This is a plodding movie about a guy who really doesn't deserve our sympathy. I gave up after 20 minutes. It's one thing to have a crush on your first grade teacher when you're actually in the first grade, but in this case Max just seems like a whacko stalker.

The film makers try to make us believe that Max is some sort of gifted genius by running us through a massive but brief montage of his activities, but when we actually see the guy in action, it's impossible to believe he has the brains for any one of those activities. He supposed be directing plays and editing the newspaper, but his social skills are so lacking, he'd never be able to carry it off.

In Harold and Maude and The Graduate we get the May-December element combined with the social satire in much more effective way. Of course Ben and Harold are, unlike Max, rich kids so the outsider element is missing. Unlike Max though Ben and Harold know how ridiculous their parents' world is. They're insiders who have become outsiders. Even the more recent Loser (which while enjoyable isn't in a class with The Graduate and H&M), gives us an outsider who for all his geekiness comes to understand what's going on around him, and throughout the film we see his sincerity. Rushmore just doesn't deliver the goods.

Rushmore tries to hard to be clever, but never really takes a knife to its target. It tries to be sweet, but it does so without any real heart. Don't waste your time with this one.

They say a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Well, with four screenwriters, this is a camel of a film. John Cusack and Dan Aykroyd don't make it as hit men for me to begin with. Cusack was great playing against type as Nelson Rockefeller in Cradle Will Rock, but he keeps just enough of his lovesick blues to make himself look miscast here. Aykroyd is just too much of a goofball to pull of this role.

The buildup to any sort of satisfying payoff just isn't enough to sustain you through the film. And the payoff isn't much anyway.

Even though this predates Analyze This and The Sopranos, the psychiatrist scenes seem a little derivative, but Alan Arkin does a great job, and the scenes with Arkin and Cusack are wonderful. As usual Cusack and sister Joan have some great scenes together, but they don't compensate for what is otherwise a rather tiring story.