Fat Kid Rules the World

This is based on a young adult novel. The marketing of the movie makes a big deal that it is directed by actor Matthew Lillard (last widely seen probably as the husband who was cheating with George Clooney's wife in The Descendants; he's also well known for playing Shaggy in the Scooby Doo movies and in the movie Scream).

The film focuses on an out of shape teen, Troy (Jacob Wysocki, who played Terri in the film of the same name which costarred John C. Reilly as the school principal). We see he doesn't like his life much as he fantasizes about the sexy girls at school as well as tries committing suicide, this last effort ended up him being pushed out of the way of a bus by the homeless dropout dope addict Marcus (Matt O'Leary). Marcus tries to cadge money off Troy for saving his life, then cons Troy to be the drummer of his non-existent punk band. It seems Marcus has talent but due to his personality and addiction he got kicked out of his old band. His mother also has remarried so Marcus doesn't live at home with her either.

Troy, who really has no legitimate interest in Marcus or punk music, nevertheless is taken with Marcus' open offer of faux friendship, even if it is kind of parasitic. Troy opens his personality up a little and starts to misbehave or do illegal things with Marcus. Troy's father (Billy Campbell) can see Marcus' bad influence, but he holds his tongue and lets Troy explore this for a time, because the family has gone through the death of Troy's mother and Troy's father has the "at least he's getting out of the house" mentality. Eventually Troy offers Marcus a real friendship and tries to help him clean up his act.

Troy's brother and a love interest is also shown, as well as a childhood friend who has been ignoring Troy since his mother died (the friend felt awkward and didn't know how to behave). The movie is well-acted, especially by Matt O'Leary, although the happy ending and character development needed to be stronger. Also the character of Marcus steals the limelight from that of Troy, whose story needed to be more front and center if the film was meant to have him as the focus. Elements such as "fat kid" or "punk music" needed to be developed more strongly too, although punk music seems like a pretty appropriate music style for the theme of the movie. Punk would draw Troy to expressing himself more, as that music is a lot about not caring about the establishment and more about rebellion, but I didn't think Marcus' talent was very strongly realized and Troy's involvement as a drummer was a little weak too. Some better development in these areas would have made this a better film but it is not bad as far as teen novels go.