The Chumscrubber Review Score: 6/10 | Date Posted: January 17th 2006 In: DVD Reviews Starring: Jamie Bell, Glenn Close, Ralph Fiennes Directed by: Arie Posin Released by: DreamWorks The Chumscrubber Review by Ricky Smith | HNR Contributor The 2005 Sundance hit is now on DVD and I’ll tell you why it’s worth a rental…Barely. Before we start, I feel inclined to let you know I’m not one of those artsy fartsy guys who enjoys obscure, quirky, dark comedies so I went into this with a little hesitation (reference my American Pie: Band Camp review) plus my continuous adulation for directors Michael Bay and Antoine Fuqua. So if I still have your respect, let’s continue. We are welcomed into a plasticy suburb of northern California, a place where everyone is completely self absorbed and have no idea what’s going on around them. A tragic accident opens the film where our lead Dean (Jamie Bell), a loner and school reject feels it’s his fault his best friend, his only friend just committed suicide. After a pretty intense, yet quirky opening we’re introduced to the rest of the suburb which is notably FULL of A-list actors. Ralph Fiennes, Allison Janney, Jason Isaccs, Glenn Close, Will Fichtner, Rita Wilson, with Vancouver’s own Carrie Anne Moss and Justin Chatwin…perhaps they were more impressed with who else was in the film rather then reading the script. It turns out that Dean’s best friend was a local drug dealer and now Chatwin’s character Billy along with comrade’s Lee and Crystal have too many orders to stop selling and assume that Dean knows where his drugs are. After a few ‘no I won’t, yes you will threats’ Billy thinks kidnapping Dean’s younger brother; Charlie, might convince him otherwise. It doesn’t and they actually kidnap some other messed lonely and confused kid ironically named Charlie, whose parents Fiennes and Wilson are more concerned with their upcoming nuptials then the whereabouts of their son...who is 13...who has been missing for at least three days. While that turns out to be the driving force behind these tangled webs there are a few other additional subplots. Dean’s parents Fichtner and Janney are both so career driven they can’t actually humanize what Dean is going through and decide medicating him is the best thing for him…which leads him to hallucination and basically makes him more distant and lonely. Two of the mothers in this film give extraordinary performances. Glenn Close adequately portrays a grieving mother more torn with the loss of her son then reality itself. While Carrie Anne Moss; Crystal’s sexpot mom is more interested in hanging with the young ones then men her own age; ala Stifler’s Mom (from American Pie). The denouement circles around this unconvincing kidnapping plot that has somehow developed daily affirmations for everyone involved while conviently tying into the obscure idiosyncrasies that the remaining characters in the suburb endure. While some are fleshed out nicely others are left with quirks and traits that come off almost comedic in their delivery. In conclusion, I actually enjoyed this film more then I thought I would. Does it mean it’s great? No. Its artificial flavor enables any true emotion from being conveyed. It just came off as a wannabe ‘Independent’ film that tried ways too hard to be edgy, or a Donnie Darko-esque film that never delivers the goods. While the performances by Chatwin, Close and young Thomas Curtis are outstanding, I never felt this was the ‘real’ world and lost any and all believability. Although the production design and cinematography was top notch, the un-original storyline and lackluster dialogue is what ruined it for me...but then again, I thought Bad Boys 2 was a wonderful sequel and probably the best action film since True Lies. Let the debates begin!

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