John Tucker Must Die

Three high school girls (Ashanti, Sophia Bush and Arielle Kebbel) discover that they are all dating the same guy, John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe). They team up with a new classmate (Brittany Snow) and conspire to ruin his life in this unfunny and often ugly movie. The film aspires to be something along the lines of Heathers, but it can’t touch that dark-comedy classic. While Snow is a likable enough performer, the rest of the cast is annoyingly amateurish, especially Metcalfe, a TV actor making his big-screen debut. There are no laughs to be had here, unless the sight of male basketball players wearing thongs seems funny to you. You know you are in trouble when your film ends with a cake fight. It’s directed by Betty Thomas, who used to be somebody (she directed the very funny Private Parts, the Howard Stern movie). Her career has hit one mother of a pothole, and this is the sort of movie that will banish her to TV land.