I enjoy a good high school drama as much as the next guy, and I'm quite willing to hold my nose a little bit with regards to originality and believability, but unfortunately, with this movie, the stink penetrated my best nose-blocking efforts.<br /><br />There is nothing new in this movie at all. There is nothing that is even gently used. It's all been done before, again and again, ad nauseam. And done better. But unoriginality is not this movie's only crime. Worse is the total lack of a believable setting or narrative.<br /><br />First of all, high school is not like this at all -- this is the Hollywood stereotype high school that we have all become so familiar with over the years in movie after movie, most recently with "17 Again". Why can't they break free of this particular fantasy and create a high school that is just a little more interesting and believable?<br /><br />Second, you don't have to examine the story very closely to find it wanting. I'm willing to let all kinds of things go for the sake of suspension of disbelief, but this movie just pushes it too far. There's a scene where Charlie and his buddy decide to sell videotapes of students being beaten up, and the whole school goes crazy trying to buy them. I just didn't get it. Another sequence features Charlie visiting psychiatrist after psychiatrist to obtain prescription drugs. Presumably,as a minor, they would consult with his mother before prescribing these drugs, and in fact, it would be very unusual for them to even accept him as a patient without first having contact with a parent -- at very least to arrange for payment (this being the United States). And the things he gets away with in the boys' bathroom? Please.<br /><br />And third, the stereotype characters. Dear Lord, save us from the same set of stereotypes yet again -- even more crudely and lazily fashioned than they usually are. Go and write the first three to five high school stereotype characters that come to mind on the back of an envelope -- and yup, you're going to see them in this movie. I get the impression that the film makers didn't even try to do anything different with these characters because they were as bored with them as we are.<br /><br />If I were from this age group, I would be particularly offended by this movie because of the way it portrays teenagers. Dumb, drug-addled, text-messaging sheep. The ill-defined clumsy lesson at the end seems to be something about how parents have to be better, and have to support their kids dumb, drug-addled, text-messaging sheepish ways - or something like that.<br /><br />The whole movie reeks of "why bother". Redeeming qualities? Well, the actor who plays Charlie Bartlett does a nice job. He's fun to watch. I've always thought Robert Downey Jr. is talented. He deserves better than this movie. I would have to dig really deep to come up with a third one. Ummmm. The architecture of the school is nice.