November Criminals

Not that it's awful, exactly. It's a low-budget generic shrug of a movie, one that recycles clichs both ancient (testy drug dealers) and slightly less ancient (the hero films his life with a camcorder).

An ever-uneasy hybrid of teen angst tale and whodunit.

The starry chemistry of leads Ansel Elgort and Chlo Grace Moretz injects a modicum of energy into the coming-of-age drama, whose elements of romance, crime and smart-kid angst never coalesce.

Sam Munson's 2010 novel The November Criminals is the kind of book that attracts smart filmmakers and serious actors - that then, all too often, gets diluted into a bland disappointment like November Criminals.

What follows is something like Veronica Mars, only set in snowy D.C. and on heavy sedatives.

The film advances that old Hollywood trope: Blacks can't get justice unless whites are willing to get it for them.

There is undoubtedly talent here, but Gervasi's direction does little to make up for the script, which takes great liberties with Sam Munson's original novel

...precisely the kind of movie that I wish I could recommend simply to spark conversation on how not to tackle issues of race in a film, but it is such a dull and lifeless experience that it can't even serve that purpose.

The most questionable 85 minutes a viewer could waste in 2017.

Little more than a glorified afterschool special, and the fact that it's strongly cast only adds to bewilderment about how it went so wrong.