Graduation

By Mayna Bergmann -- Video Business, 4/21/2008

MAGNOLIA
Street: May 13
Prebook: now
> High school buddy/adventure flick doesn’t carry a lot of weight.

Graduation is a typical teen movie with a healthy dash of bank robber drama (a la Set It Off) thrown in, which makes it a shade more interesting than all those other movies about good-looking kids trying to figure out what to do with their lives after they graduate high school. This one centers around four friends—Carl (Chris Marquette), Tom (Chris Lowell), Polly (Shannon Lucio) and Chauncey (Riley Smith)—who are about to go their separate ways. When Carl’s mom falls ill and has no insurance to cover the hospital bills, Polly comes up with a plan to rob her father’s bank on the day of their graduation. Things go awry, of course, and it’s up to the quartet to evade being arrested—which they do with some smart thinking from an unlikely source.

Shelf Talk: Graduation’s four attractive up-and-coming leads could break through at any time, having appeared on such noted TV shows as The O.C., Joan of Arcadia and Private Practice. And that exposure is the only useful hook to reel in young adult audiences as there’s little tangible marketing or publicity support planned for this one.

Comedy, color, NR (mature themes, violence, language), 89 min., DVD $26.98
Extras: director’s commentary, alternate opening, deleted scenes
Director: Michael Mayer
First Run: DVD premiere