Smartass

2017; 1080hd

Johnny's comments:

Smartass is a set over one day/night comedy/drama set 'before cell phones' where 15 year-old Freddie (Joey King) is looking to leave home, but on the night she decides to do so, she gets arrested and then released on a technicality, which leaves her alone to deal with the Californian night life. Meanwhile, an acquaintance of Freddie's, Donny (Luke Pasqualino) is paying off a debt to crazy criminal Paolo (Arturo del Puerto) who's fighting non-stop with his girlfriend Venice (Cara Santana). Staying with them is the unstable girlfriend of Paolo's brother, Chu Chu (Nicole LaLiberte), who Paolo 'gifts' to Donny, much to his chagrin as she's a complete pain in the arse. Also, Paolo's brother Lobo needs $50,000 protection money in jail from Paolo, but he doesn't care even when the friends of the black man Lobo killed start coming for their piece. Meanwhile, Freddie gets herself into a number of scrapes including being sold into sex work by Mickey (Jake Weary). All this comes together for a helluva finale where she might not live to get to her ultimate goal, going to art college.

Feels very much like those 90s teen movies where a bunch of things happen to teen kids trying to make sense of the adult world, reminding me a lot of S.F.W. And like S.F.W, it's terrible but also surprisingly full of casual racism and numerous scenes where women are just bashed, sometimes just for no reason other than love. Nicole LaLiberte's character is an abomination even though she is playing the same type of character she always plays, but this time with added annoyance and some bizarrely unnecessary racism (the monkey scene is fucking disgusting). The scene where she's killed is so off, I don't know whether to be disgusted or relieved her character is finally gone. Which leaves me scratching my head why the talented Joey King is stuck in this turd of a movie and not without some absolutely shitty scenes (at least 2 scenes, both involving perverted middle aged men are fucking horrible). There's precious little comedy in this comedy, just hatefully foul scenes, one after the other. Now, I don't mind hateful movies as such (Christ, look at the stuff on this site), but Smartass is so disgusting that I can't believe that less than a week after calling The Little Hours the worst movie of the year, Smartass manages to be even worse.

Jesus, I sure know how to pick 'em.

Nicole LaLiberte film clip (collages below)

Cara Santana film clip (sample below)