HIGH SCHOOL (D: John Stalberg). Opens Friday (June 8). See times. Rating: NNN
With high school nearly over, uptight teenager Henry (Matt Bush) smokes his very first joint – only to discover that a surprise drug test is scheduled for the next day.
Thinking big, he and his best bud (Sean Marquette) decide to invalidate the test by baking the entire student body (and most of the faculty) with a batch of super-potent pot brownies.
Yes, the premise sounds like an idea you’d come up with while stoned, but director John Stalberg and co-writers Erik Linthorst and Stephen Susco use it as an excuse to make one of the broadest, silliest (yet somehow still endearing) stoner comedies in a while, indulging the adult members of the cast with particular gusto.
I’m not sure what Oscar-winner Adrien Brody is doing as wild-eyed drug dealer Psycho Ed, but he seems to be enjoying himself, as is Michael Chiklis, who affects John Vernon’s delivery and posture from Animal House as the crusty principal. And Colin Hanks – who played a role very similar to Bush’s a decade ago in Orange County – is now on the other side of the action as Chiklis’s hapless sidekick.
