John Tucker Must Die (12A)

The title may hint at a Mean Girls influenced attempt to successfully fuse black comedy with your average high school rom-com but after an initial 20 minutes of promise, John Tucker Must Die turns into 10 Things I Hate About She’s All That.

Jesse Metcalfe, of 'Desperate Housewives' fame (so I’m told), is John Tucker. A walking, talking, high school jock cliché incarnate. Smooth talking captain of the basketball team, guys want to be him and girls want to be with him - you get the idea. The problem with Tucker’s oh so complicated life is that he is currently dating three of the schools prize winning cattle - reporter Carrie (Arielle Kebbel), head cheerleader Heather (part-time popster Ashanti), and activist Beth (Sophia Bush) – now they have all found out and with the help of anonymous school nobody Kate (Brittany Snow) they will try and teach him a lesson he will never forget.

It’s quite an interesting premise that’s established in the films first third, coupled with quite a nastily suggestive title that never really lives up to it. The resulting movie should have been titled “John Tucker must be mildly embarrassed and learn a moral message about the way he lives his life” but that wouldn’t have been so catchy for the target audience.
The key to the films success is exactly that. The target audience of teenage girls will lap up the overly familiar comedy and the aesthetics of the ensemble cast (all at least twice the age they are meant to be portraying) who are all so mediocre in their undeveloped stereotypes that it’s hard to single out anyone for praise.

John Tucker's stay of execution from the cinematic graveyard is in the innocence of the film. It doesn’t fall into the common trap that most teen comedies think they need to rely on for success with the sleaze factor, it is (despite the advertising campaign) devoid of any real sexual escapades and is better for it. Also on the plus side is the revenge theme, although nowhere near as dark as Heathers or the aforementioned Lindsey Lohan starrer, what little fun there is to be had comes from watching the girls swap John Tucker’s muscle stimulant with estrogen pills resulting in an in-match mental breakdown.
Blame for the missed opportunities must go to director Betty Thomas (Brady Bunch Movie, I Spy) who at 58-years-old surely isn’t the right choice to be in touch with the psyche of the modern teenager? The direction is uninspired and lazy and the plot is predictable with a wholly unsatisfying climax.
John Tucker Must Die is a tediously frustrating execution of an idea that could have stood out from the genre pack. Teenagers aside, most people will feel that after watching this their wish would have been to meet the fate promised in the title to John Tucker 90 minutes earlier.