(#60) Dismissed (2017) - [7/10]

An academically-obsessed high schooler turns madly psychotic after his professor grades him a B+ on his English paper.

An optimistic, straight-edged teacher finds trouble when a star student is willing to do anything to get an A.

How would I describe this film in one word?

Mainstream.

Note

Didn't have a lot of expectations riding on this one but it didn't disappoint too much. Went into it to watch Dylan Sprouse's (Zack from 'The Suite Life of Zack and Cody') return to acting. I was very excited for it, here's how it went.

Review The story follows an academically-obsessive high schooler who turns madly psychotic after his professor grades him a B+ on his paper. He then adopts unorthodox methods to get his desired A grade. This sounded very interesting to me. Interesting, but familiar. We've seen quite a few films of teenagers with psychopathic personalities and this is no different - it remains in that realm of normalcy and cliche. Nothing new, nothing fascinating. Just very ordinary and not mixing a new spice into the genre. That's where its problem lies. Cause aside from that, there's nothing really at fault here. I enjoyed the performances of the two main leads and it was especially a treat to watch Dylan at work and I can't wait to see more of him. I enjoyed the cinematography at a particular instance. And I liked the story too, it had a good structure. I liked the antagonist's character and his transition from good boy Lucas to bad boy Ward was interesting.

I would like to pick on this film a bit by pointing out that the climax wasn't very satisfactory. Just when it seemed like Ward was going on 'total psycho' mode, it just ends seemingly abruptly and without much stake - you could feel the tension coming but it was halted before the pot could blow which was disappointing. But all in all, I enjoyed it and wasn't bored for a single moment and since I rate based on the enjoyment factor for my audience I'm going to give it a seven. Maybe I should bring it down a notch for it's overly used theme and predictably? Maybe I'm being overly generous after the train-wreck I watched yesterday? I don't know. I'm sure this is right. Please come back to the big silver screens soon Dylan, I can't wait. In the meanwhile, I'll just try and surf the internet to find how I can watch your other movies - this was on Netflix. I'm going to rate this movie an A. LOL jk. I'll give it a B-. Come at me Lucas. RATING: 7/10

---

Director: Benjamin Arfmann Rated: TV-14 Runtime: 1 hr 27 min Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller Starring: Kent Osborne, Dylan Sprouse, Rae Gray