Smartass

This movie makes light of a completely insane and self destructive lifestyle centered around a 15 yr old girl that runs away from her single mom and brother. All her friends are junkies and HARD drug dealers. She takes the wrap for a needle her older guy friend had stashed and is then released on her own in the middle of the night. She almost gets gang raped, she smokes crack for the first time like it's no big deal, she has a pervert pleasure himself while giving her a ride, and then gets drugged and sold for $200 by someone posing as a nice guy to some man that looks around 50 yrs old.. and narrowly escapes that... I've lived and seen the dark side of the "life style" this film makes light of. It's not funny and it's not a subject to joke about. Pure deceptive trash that kids will see and think this "life style" is fun and cool. They'll find out it isn't after it's too late though. This movie could not send a worse message to "teens".

The whole movie is chaotic. It follows the story of a 15years old who is so spoiled and bored of her life that decides to hop on a journey to find some adventure and she is accompanied by her junkie friends trying to sell coke and the movie is kinda based on drugs & gangs. Joey King does a good job playing Freddie which is inspired by Writer-Director's life (Jena Serbu) . You may even feel for Freddie through her dark unsafe journey when she shed some tears and say "I'm just too tired to be murdered!"

Anyway "Smartass" ain't a good word to describe the 15years old protagonist of the movie or the movie itself .It Sends some bad messages to young people out there to follow what she did. So if you really have nothing better to do and you're really bored and into these type of fast-paced absurd comedies and wanna have some fun, instead of doing what Freddie (main character) did, just watch some movies. Smartass is one!

I watched this on Amazon streaming, only because Joey King is in it, as 15-yr-old Freddie. As she is preparing to skip out she tells her mother, just imagine I am at summer camp, if you don't hear from me for a week don't worry.

The thing about Freddie is she goes into any situation totally unafraid, whether it be jail or a drug deal with guns pointed at everyone. It is as if she can't get hurt, but others may get killed and often do. She always "smartasses" herself out of any situation.

It isn't a good movie per se but a few of the situations are really entertaining. Like the time she caught a ride, the guy drugged her, put her in a cheap motel room and "sold" her for $200. When she realizes what is going on and what was expected she went into action to escape and even get money from the motel manager by threatening to expose his scheme.

No question Joey King is the only good thing about this movie, all the other actors and characters are worthless. Most viewers will not enjoy this movie.

But set in California. Without any wit, heart or humor. But with a lead actress so terribly miscast you can almost see her wanting to apologize after every F bomb she drops. We follow her over one night trying to navigate her way around various gangland/underworld perils to get back to the safety of her drug dealing pals. She gets involved in lots of nefarious druggy activities which are all blandly scripted and ludicrous to watch. You need to have an actor who goes at this film full throttle. And with this script that means nudity, a convincing nastiness to their character and someone who knows how to smoke and take drugs realistically on screen. Former teen nickleodeon star joey king is not that actress. This film is an utter failure. Even the casual violence and constant racial insults and slurs became boring to watch after about 15 minutes. By 20 minutes in i was aching to turn this off. But somehow i stuck it out to the end.

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.