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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 05/25/2008 : 11:03:09
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Charlie Bartlett adds little new to the canon of cinema, but it does give you a chance to see how good Downey Jr can be under motivated restraint, and confirm that Anton Yelchin is a kid to watch out for. He'll be co-starring with Christian Bale in Terminator 4, and playing Chekov in the new Star Trek, but here he's the eponymous anti-hero of this peppy, preppy, full-of-cliches coming of age tale.
He's the brilliant but disturbed rich kid of dysfunctional mom, Hope Davis. When on-call shrinks and a succession of private schools fail to counteract the influence of a mother who tries to turn Charlie into her have-fun companion, she enrols him in public school. At first his survival tactics get flushed down the toilet and attract the opproprium of troubled principal Downey Jr. Dad gets madder when he discovers this misfit is dating his daughter [Kat Dennings doing a creditable job in an underwritten role for which she's tad too old].
Bartlett turns his teen tormentors into allies, first by re-selling his Rx drugs, then becoming a combo priest/counsellor to the student body. By seeding revolution into this apathetic bunch he inadvertantly forces Bartlett to confront his own demons. The choices which each person makes as a result form the bulk of the story.
It fails because writer Gustin Nash is just too inexperienced to portray real people, but relies on text-book assumptions. That the actors transcend this to some kind of watchability is testament first to their skill and second to the instincts director Jon Poll, an ex-editor. Most of all, though, it showcases Yelchin as one of the most versatile and engaging young performers around.
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Charlie Bartlett
