Starring Jay Baruchel. Rated PG. Opens Friday, May 14, at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas and the Cinemark Tinseltown

In The Trotsky, Jay Baruchel, the skinny kid from Tropic Thunder and Knocked Up, plays a Montreal teen called Leon Bronstein. The mere fact that his birth name is the same as Leon Trotsky's has convinced him that he is the Westmount-born reincarnation of the famed Bolshevik leader. In fact, Leon believes he must reenact all the key stages of Trotsky's life, right down to marriage, exile, and assassination—“hopefully somewhere warm”, he writes on a giant flow chart that no one in his family appears to have noticed.

After attempting to unionize the factory run by his wealthy father (Saul Rubinek, playing it straight), the kid is yanked out of private school. Neither Leon nor young writer-director Jacob Tierney seem to be familiar with public-school realities, sadly, since that's where the rest of the nearly two-hour film mostly resides. Although we're told that he's attending an arts school, the place is more uptight than anything John Hughes knew, the better to set up a pointless battle with the stern principal played by a gaunt-looking Colm Feore, who clearly enjoys being a snaky villain.

Also fun to watch is veteran Michael Murphy (An Unmarried Woman) as a transplanted Yank law professor whom Leon badgers to take up his alleged cause. Far less enjoyable is Emily Hampshire as whiny grad student Alexandra—the same name as Trotsky's first wife, so you know where that is going. Oddly, Hampshire resembles a young(ish) Genevií¨ve Bujold, since the latter actually shows up, as a school-board head of uncertain convictions.

At the end of this poorly lit, unfunny Canuck venture, everyone stands around praising Leon's rabble-rousing audacity. Yet no one questions how “progressive” it is to simply imitate the outlines of a life you admire. And, not to be too picky, the first one really didn't turn out that well, did it?