No. 68 New Port South (2001) 11 of 100

 

Some young adult wish fulfilment now as a bunch of high school youths take on the school administration, man!

The film opens in sepia tone with Michael (credited: Mike) Shannon punching in a bunch of windows and then being found in a janitor’s closet. The sepia represents the past and we get plenty of these flashback clips throughout the film.

It’s now the present day and Maddox isn’t happy with the school administration. He doesn’t like the creepy gym teacher or the nasty history teacher who rips up his pal’s drawing just because it had insurrectionist symbols on it. No way!

Maddox rallies his motley crew of friends to start a covert battle against the school bosses, who all seemed quite nice to me. They start with a flyer campaign and stick up posters outing teachers for their indiscretions. They take their lead from the legendary John Stanton who also stuck it to the man before he cut himself up in the opening sequence and was sent to a mental institution.

In a plot point that goes nowhere Stanton has escaped the mental asylum and has visited several others to free the inmates. He sounds quite the menace but is canonised by the yoof looking for inspiration in their desperate, and pathetic, struggle.

Students follow Maddox and take a day off at one point much to the teachers’ chagrin. Things come to a head when a teacher is outed for drunk driving, an episode that left a child paralysed. The teacher confesses all but reveals the child was his son. I’m not sure why this garnered him any sympathy, but the crew start to lose faith in Maddox.

With news that Stanton has been recaptured off camera the scene is set for a final showdown with Maddox and the gang occupying the Dean’s office. Are the students willing to jeopardise their careers for the increasingly unhinged Maddox and what is the truth of the Stanton episode?

This was a terrible film with little to say and an incoherent way of saying it. It was clear from the off that Maddox had an impotent rage that was pretty groundless. I think it was intentional that the teachers’ ’crimes’ were mostly minimal and the system that Maddox was trying to smash wasn’t so bad anyway. The fact that he took his lead from a lunatic spoke volumes.

I didn’t think the lead had the presence to be the leader of men he was shown to be and the whole insurrection thing has a sense of feebleness about it.

The only bit I thought was clever was when the ‘South’ of the title was changed to ‘Youth’ with the addition of a stamp. Good wordplay there!

Shannon has a near nothing role here and I don’t think he had a single line – maybe one grunt and that’s it. He was seen throughout the film in flashback but we only say his actions and their consequences but nothing from him in terms of rhetoric or even a lunch order. He was 27 when this was made and was playing 20 so he was probably wise to keep his head down.

I had no interest in any of the characters and I’d describe the ending as ‘fizzling out’ but sadly it never lit up in the first place!

When is Shannon-On? - 00.28

Outcome? Back in the Looney bin

Film 2/5

Shannon Stars 1/5