Outstandingly shallow film, well-mounted, atrociously written

Rating: 1/10 (11 June 2005)

Everything that was wrong with MILLION DOLLAR BABY (and, for that matter, with the otherwise unrelated TRAINING DAY) is thoroughly intensified in this sorry excuse for an adult AFTERSCHOOL SPECIAL. Caricatures rage at other caricatures, dramatic events have little valid foreshadowing to give them any real weight, ridiculous and ridiculously frequent coincidences are adorably depended upon, and cheap, lazy writing comes at the audience in almost every scene. The portrayals of East Asians is particularly egregiously racist in that "Ho-ho, aren't we clever for indulging in stereotypes that we all know are stereotypes" way but no one in the film escapes this altogether. If letter-grading, I'd give it an F+: the first sequence between the locksmith and his daughter was well-acted enough to make me forgive its poor writing (and the encounter between the director and the younger cop is almost as not-bad), but too soon we're back to Clash of the Cardboard Cut-Outs, despite solid efforts by the cast and crew to professionalize this drivel.