Review: Three O’Clock High

High school dork Casey Siemaszko is asked to write a favourable piece on the recently transferred Richard Tyson, who comes with a seriously bad and violent rep, and may in fact be a complete psycho. Unfortunately, he’s a tough nut to crack, and Siemaszko, going the complete wrong way about it (this guy is very ‘touchy’ about being touched), ends up with an after school date with Tyson’s switchblade. He spends the rest of the day attempting everything under the sun to get out of his rendezvous with certain death, but it doesn’t look good for him. Jeffrey Tambor is the affable student supplies store owner whom Siemaszko works for, Phillip Baker Hall is a detective who specialises in juvenile crime, Charles Macaulay (who played Dracula in the blaxploitation favourite “Blacula”) is the intimidating chrome-domed VP, John P. Ryan is the principal, Caitlin O'Heaney plays a horny English teacher, Anne Ryan is Siemaszko’s quirky best pal (you can call her Mary Stuart Masterson in “Some Kind of Wonderful”), Liza Morrow is the pretty popular girl in school (who for once is genuinely sweet), Stacey Glick is Siemaszko’s kid sister, Mitch Pileggi is a stupid but dogged security guard, and Yeardley ‘Lisa Simpson’ Smith plays a cheerleader.

 

There’s a lot of interesting names in the cast of this 1987 teen comedy, but some of the behind the scenes talent is perhaps more interesting and promise something quite substantial. You’ve got Barry Sonnenfeld (director of “Men in Black”) as a ‘Lighting Consultant’, Spielberg protégé Phil Joanou (the U2 doco “Rattle & Hum”, the excellent crime flick “State of Grace”) as director, Richard (Christian) Matheson as co-screenwriter (he being son of the other Richard Matheson, and a veteran of TV shows like “The A-Team”), music by 80s staple Tangerine Dream (“The Keep”, “Near Dark”) and Sylvester Levay, and producers Neal Israel (co-writer/director of “Bachelor Party”, and co-writer of “Police Academy” and a couple of episodes of “The Wonder Years”) and Aaron Spelling (iconic TV producer, father of demon spawn Tori). There’s also an uncredited name involved, one Steven Spielberg who acted as Executive Producer, but had his name left off the credits. Why? Some say he and Aaron Spelling got along like the Hatfields and McCoys, and especially disputed over a kiss scene at the end of the film. Even if the kiss was indeed Spielberg getting his way and not Spelling (and that’s the way it seems, based on what I’ve read), there’s nothing in this film that positively enhances the Spielberg brand (it’s pretty close to a John Hughes rip-off, however), so I don’t blame him for not taking credit, especially since he was probably just doing a favour for buddy Joanou.

 

Why am I dropping all these names and knowledge on you? Because frankly, the film itself isn’t memorable enough to spend a whole helluva lot of time discussing. And also because it takes 90 minutes to do what “The Wonder Years” (my favourite TV show) perfected in under 30 minutes, in the episode where Kevin Arnold squares off against bully Eddie Pinetti. There’s certainly not enough material in the script by Matheson and Thomas E. Szollosi (who wrote 8 episodes of “The A-Team”) for a motion picture story. In the end it comes off as tolerable, but kinda like a bland “Ferris Bueller” (both share cast member Anne Ryan, who had maybe one line in the earlier film but is an oddball sidekick here), and the only chuckles coming from Richard Tyson’s scary-yet-funny performance, and an amusing scene where he has a showdown with the jock hire by nerdy Casey Siemaszko (who needs to rely on his wits, but is sadly no Ferris Bueller in that department) to do his fighting for him.

 

The other big problem is Joanou’s direction, which seems like aggressive compensation for a mediocre script. I get what he was trying to do and what he was stuck with, but Joanou brings ‘ham-fisted’ to a whole new level, and a little of it goes a long, long way. I kinda resisted and resented it, to be honest. I know he was trying to ratchet up the tension, but Tyson’s smouldering, Brando-esque performance full of seething and barely suppressed rage was doing enough of the work in that regard already (Apparently he’s an incredibly nice, humble guy in real-life, but this and “Kindergarten Cop” have you questioning that).

 

Aside from Tyson, the actors are all pretty wasted, especially talented character actors John P. Ryan, Mitch Pileggi (“The X Files”), Phillip Baker Hall, and Jeffrey Tambor. Casey Siemaszko (who was terrific as nervous Charlie in “Young Guns”) is OK in the lead, but Liza Morrow is pretty awful as the ‘hot’ girl, and Anne Ryan’s rather odd character seems to come from an entirely different movie. She’s also way too hot for Siemaszko, or at least way too hot for him to want to be with anyone other than her. I could never quite figure that one out.

 

No, there’s not much to see here, I’m afraid. Don’t let all the recognisable names fool you, it’s pretty forgettable stuff, a John Hughes imitator by someone who seemingly watched a lot of Hughes movies without learning much. It feels like a bit of a fraud. That said, it does seem to have a bit of a cult following, so what do I know?

 

Rating: C