One of the worst of the late 90's teen revival flicks, Disturbing Behaviour at first seems like quite a clever film introducing us to new-kid-on-the-block Steve Clark (Marsden) who, after arriving at his new school finds the student body divided in more than the usual way. While we have the usual metalheads, skateboarders, geeks, Ivy Leaguers et al, the films main view aims straight at the brilliant, attractive, straight-from-the-50's embodiment of Christian ethics, the Blue Ribbons. It doesn't take long for us to realise that there is something very odd about them.
Marsden makes a bizarre 18-year old, especially when you consider that only 2 years later he's playing Cyclops in X-Men and he's not helped by a slew of either miscast, in the case of the terrible Katie Holmes, or simply awful, er... everyone else. Only Nick Stahl comes out with any credit as the paranoid druggie Gavin Strick, whose knowledge of the Blue Ribbons dark side is invaluable. Steve Railsback and William Sadler, two of my favourite actors, are completely wasted.
The plot is hardly original but what could have been a mildly effective The Outer Limits style exploration of society and control is simply not taken past the first revelation and it's impossible to feel any sympathy for any of the characters because of their failure to evoke any tangible feelings on screen. Holmes is the worst playing well against type as a metalhead (think Audrey Hepburn playing a crack whore) who says 'razor' a lot as if it was a vile swear word.
By the time the whole point of the film became apparent I was too bored to really care and the ending was just silly. One question though, Marsden and his family moved to what seemed to be a quiet little island community didn't they? So why did there appear to be thousands of students in the local high school? |
