Early on in the movie, a very obvious nod is made to A Clockwork Orange and it becomes apparent that director and screenwriter Richard Zelniker was attempting to draw similarities. A bunch of kids who feel looked down upon go out as a gang, in this film its on a self-proclaimed holiday dubbed Mischief Night, and start beating up people they deem accepting of the beat down.
Its a group of relative newcomers. Luke Baines plays Ricky, the leader of the Misfit group, a sneering bleach blond loud mouth. Myko Olivier plays the newest Misfit, Sean, who doesnt seem to fit in as well as he thought he would. When Mischief Night starts to get too intense, Sean starts to doubt the beliefs and actions of the other Misfits and starts to question himself as well.
The movie is a complete snore. It attempts to create an already much provided social message about bullying and the repercussions of it but ends up falling short. One detail makes it incredibly hard to connect or sympathize with any of the characters: they are all completely awful.
Ricky throws around insults that are dated and would hardly even be considered racy on the Disney channel while Sean never manages to stick up for himself or really form his own opinion. He never has a backbone and it becomes infuriating to see him constantly berated by his so called friend but constantly shun any sort of help that is offered to him. The bullies hardly bully at all and it almost seems deserved because of how rude and overly abrasive Ricky and his crew are.
The pace is languid, at best, and even the points of action are so brief and generic that it fails to ever really get a rise out of the viewer. The dialogue is trying so hard to be poignant that it more often comes across as hammy. The character development is nearly non-existent, save for a few flashbacks that shed some light on Sean, and the flashbacks are probably some of the best scenes in the movie.
A romantic interest is also introduced, Evanne Friedmann as Sarah, but shes nothing more than a foil. She exists purely to stir the pot and to keep the story moving forward, a gear in the machine. Friedmann is the most believable actress out of the bunch though and shows glimpses of fine acting.
Overall, the movie tries and constantly fails to make an impact. Although the cast brings a bout of realism to the film, mostly because theyre nearly all fresh newcomers, its not enough to make it interesting. Zelniker has a message hes trying to portray, he just doesnt managed to do so very well.
