I wish I could recommend this movie, at least to die hard Joseph Gordon-Levitt fans (looking towards MR, and AE, if I remember correctly), but I can’t, really. There are a lot of interesting things about this movie, but not so much the movie itself. Take any of the film noir movies involving tough guys and shady dames and update the time to current day high school. Let JGL play the Bogey role. Sounds more interesting that it turns out – not that it turns out bad, this is no stinker. The dialog is amazingly true to its inspiration / conceit. I don’t think there was one obscenity. The violence involves serious beatings / fights and one too-well-done execution. Still, Lucas Haas as the kingpin – excellent – as inspired as Sidney Greenstreet. There were a few moments where the teen underworld brushed the middle-class suburban context, where mom dotes over a visiting boy or a thug talks about a book, that make me think they played it too straight; a little more of that (“There’s the Boss, and his mom.”) might have made this too camp, but more enjoyable.