This teenagers-gone-wild story was interesting enough, though not really much different from dozens of others on the same theme except for the performance by McKaley Miller, who holds the whole thing together right until the end.

At that point, the two main characters are looking at each other with "What Just Happened?" expressions. My reaction was the same. And the script apparently provides no answers for anyone. Just move onto the credits and invent your own ending, I guess.

Another case of a script that is essentially only an idea and the parties complete the undertaking without having a couple more discussions to cover how they to wrap the whole thing up.

This film does little to develop any of the characters, and the plot is basic rich/poor at a fancy school. Except the target is entry to an Ivy league school rather than to stop bullying.

So stock rich kids & poor kids engage so the poor one can finagle into a school that her poor friend has a full ride. Rich kids are standard rich kids with all the excess that comes with it.

Oh wait, the film starts wurh a missing girl!

What starts as a standard party to get ahead turns into a heist and hostage situation. All the wrong choices are made, all the obvious signs are ignored, and the revenge is served stupidly.

Oh well. Anne Heche filmed her part soon before she died. She looked as if she was ready to fall over intoxicated. Or she was reeling from chemo.

Tense only due to the stupidity if the characters.

Just some observations mixed with questions to follow. I don't recognize most of these characters. The lead and her bestie's relationship seem plausible enough. Others however, don't feel like people that exist any place but in a movie. How and why are the antagonists here friends? The sniveling Gooch is completely and stupefyingly inept, getting owned every time by female characters, both enemies and allies, and he loves slapping his head... a lot. He's also easily the most helpless, hopeless character and the movie's (scape)GOAT! I won't bother much with the vaguely lesbian Kendra, and her butterfly knife(?) or the leader of the strangely insular trio Barrett, making(and looking)like an ersatz, young Kevin Bacon. Of greater concern is the linchpin event, at the heart of this story. Barrett is the highly privileged son of a congressman who trolls the streets in broad daylight picking up a familiar, but hesitant young girl, with his number one and two in tow? Really? Who thought this was a winning idea? You'll notice phones are like another character here. Things happen with them that are highly questionable, but convenient to the plot. Dermot Mulroney is on board, in a turn similar to the one he played in this year's Scream sequel, and the late Anne Heche plays his wife and she, well... see for yourself. The lesser known players are solid enough, but some say and do "iffy" things that detract from their performances. One scene has the lead girl, Eden intending to schmooze up to (Barrett) Schroder for reasons known to both, but when it's just the two of them alone, he's doing all the talking while she can barely wait to dispense with the small talk, cutting straight to the chase with all the finesse of Godzilla stomping through Tokyo! While this movie's third act is more interesting than what came before it, it's the clunky stuff that came before that holds it back, as a whole. I actually started this review while still watching the film. I was ready to give it 2 stars 30-40 mins in, before it continued to it's conclusion and I realized that it would be too harsh a judgment. It's simply not that bad, but it also, while competently assembled with a certain amount of flair, has character, dialogue and script/plot issues that keep it firmly in, "It's ok" territory.