The Education of Charlie Banks

    1 of 1 2 of 1

      Starring Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Ritter. Rated 14A. Opens Friday, April 17, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

      The third coming-of-age-in-the-’80s flick in as many weeks, and the second starring likable Jesse Eisenberg as yet another nebbish with untapped resources, The Education of Charlie Banks is not just the best of the batch, it’s also the most complicated.


      Watch the trailer for The Education of Charlie Banks.

      This time, the Adventureland Brillo-head plays the title character, a middle-class Greenwich Village teen who has read his way into the Ivy League. Rooming with rich kid Danny (Chris Marquette, of Fanboys), Charlie is haunted by an incident back in the ’70s when he witnessed a pal of Danny’s give two frat boys a bloody beating.

      So guess who shows up at their dorm one day? Yup, said thug, the charismatic Mick (an appropriately menacing Jason Ritter, son of John Ritter), is suddenly on the scene again, perhaps to suss out if Charlie sang to the cops back then but definitely moving in on all he now holds dear—including a haughty senator’s girl (Susan Sarandon’s daughter, Eva Amurri) way beyond both their leagues.

      Class boundaries connect and divide Charlie and his former nemesis and also supply subtext for this surprisingly nuanced directorial debut for Fred Durst, late of the band Limp Bizkit. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Durst has a sensitive handle on a terrific, if slightly underpopulated, cast. He since went on to squander his talent with the forgettable sports drama The Longshots (which was released first), and here he could have avoided underlining screenwriter Peter Elkoff’s references to The Great Gatsby and other tales of tragic social mobility. But this Education is actually about something, and there’s nothing dumb about the musical score, either.

      Comments