’ I am the new guy’ says DJ Qualls after he makes his ’much worked for’ debut in his new high school...and that’s when you start backing him up and prodding him on in his mission. Oh sorry, forgot to mention the sole aim of ’dizzy’s’ (yes thats his name) life - to be known as someone who’s ’so cool that he’s hot!!!!’ To put it in a nutshell, simple dizzy is a nerd who is always picked upon in his school and teased to the limit. One day he meets with an unfortunate...umm..mishap (now if you understand what exactly happens in this...plssss let me know!!) and then another mishap and so on till he lands up in jail - aha, thats his salvation - he meets a convict who is ’so dangerous he is cool’ who after giving him advice on everything from his diction to his vocabulary to his haircut turns the caterpillar into a sensational butterfly (ok wrong analogy but you get the drift). And ofcourse the new look can only be successful if its a new school. So...go back to the start...Dizzy (now known as Gil), with help from the prisoners, Jail wardens and cops makes his entry into the new school.
Till this point the movie is cute. You sympathise and empathise with Dizzy. Ok, so everyone is not ’in’, ’with it’ or ’cool’ - the three words which you long to belong to. How many times have we wanted to be with the ’popular’ group in school..college..work!! The group which everyone looks up to, which everyone wants to belong to, be accepted by. Subconsciously all of us have this inherent need of wanting to be popular. Dizzy could be any one of us , tired of being ribbed, teased and laughed at, just because he studies, doesnt have a crew cut and is so eager to please. DJ Qualls acting is great. He portrays the confused Dizzy brilliantly, who even though has a new look is still the same person - who although is now the one who is the ’coolest’ loves his ealier ’nerdy’ friends and tries to remove this divide between the cool and the uncool. However, the build up of the first part fails quite a bit with the second one. Its a little over dramatic and ..how do I put it, the budding romance (or should I say lust) between him and the college babe is irritating - you liked the earlier dizzy and the trying to get established Gil - not the starved dizzy gil. The end , also, leaves you feeling with much to be desired.
The expectations of the first half are not met - the football championship is over melodramatic, the way the school studs reveal the reality of dizzy is predictable and the climax is ’thud’ But the metamorphosis of dizzy is fun - from the beginning to the end. The emotions which are dealt with very subtly hit you - somewhere. The guest appearances by Vanilla Ice, Tommy Lee, etc don’t really make sense.