{"id":4850,"date":"2012-05-09T14:46:30","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T18:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4850"},"modified":"2012-05-09T14:46:30","modified_gmt":"2012-05-09T18:46:30","slug":"film-fat-kid-rules-the-world-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4850","title":{"rendered":"Film: Fat Kid Rules the World (2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>F<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Excellent\/ DVD Transfer: n\/a \/ DVD Extras: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a<\/p>\n

Genre: Drama \/ Comedy<\/p>\n

Synopsis: After saving the life of a suicidal fat kid, a down & out punk rock guitarist tries to exploit the debt owed to him.<\/p>\n

Special Features: n\/a<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Actor Matthew Lillard\u2019s apparently been sitting on the rights to film K.L. Going\u2019s 2003 novel for around 9 years, and the combination of patience, steady paychecks, and working with a variety of directors paid off very well in this atypical take on the ill-fitting teen who wanders through high school in a daze.<\/p>\n

Troy (Jacob Wysocki) is indeed a fat kid, and just as he\u2019d about to step forward to kill himself by commuter bus, punk guitarist Marcus (Matt O\u2019Leary) tackles him to the ground, saving his life but charging $20 for the service. Marcus becomes a best friend\/fly in Troy\u2019s ointment, constantly invading his personal space & fridge which Troy could stop, but seeing how his new friend is regarded as a cool rebel and has hot groupies, he reconsiders and starts a peculiar friendship which is supposed to culminate in a two-man punk band project. Troy, however, can\u2019t play an instrument, but his father buys him a drum set, and the film slowly moves towards the band\u2019s first proper debut.<\/p>\n

Fat Kid<\/strong>\u2019s secondary characters are integral to Troy\u2019s background and ongoing state as a pretty grounded and decent kid, and what distinguishes the film from the other awkward teen comedy-dramas is how the screenwriters and director Lillard never give in to clich\u00e9s. Marcus is a tragic figure \u2013 he\u2019s sort of talented, but mostly a disturbed drug addict always looking for a solid fix \u2013 but he\u2019s vital to the needed cathartic collision between Troy, his younger brother Dayle (Dyland Arnold), and father (Billy Campbell) that allows the Billings family to finally grieve over their dead maternal figure.<\/p>\n

Scenes that should glide into maudlin terrain take swift right turns, and clich\u00e9d dialogue exchanges are replaced by little quiet scenes played by a very able cast of relative newcomers. The only character that\u2019s a bit tough to grasp is Troy\u2019s father \u2013 he seems too supportive of Marcus, who represents a total corruption of the household order he\u2019s preserved since his wife\u2019s death \u2013 but there are enough small scenes that make his support plausible.<\/p>\n

Lillard also avoids clich\u00e9d cutaways \u2013 the repeated sad face close-ups and depressing music stings designed to force audiences to cry \u2013 and montages that tend to exist to pad a film\u2019s running time. It\u2019s a lean script that expertly sidesteps standard clich\u00e9s, including the final concert which we never actually see<\/em> because the relationships are what\u2019s relevant, not music numbers interpolated to sell a soundtrack CD.<\/p>\n

There are shades of SLC Punk<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>] (1998) in Fat Kid<\/strong>, a film where Lillard proved his own skills as a lead actor but also established the parameters of the eccentric rebel kid \/ weird guy he\u2019d play for the next 10 years. O\u2019Leary seems to have been directed to mimic some of Lillard\u2019s performance quirks, but they work for Marcus; you just know, however, that had Lillard been 20 years younger, he\u2019d be the one playing Marcus.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an assured directorial debut (and a film not easy to classify), but in classic indie fashion, Fat Kid <\/strong>exceeds the awkward kid dramas cranked out by the studios. Easily a minor genre classic.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB<\/a> — Official Website<\/a><\/p>\n


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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0F<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ F . Film: Excellent\/ DVD Transfer: n\/a \/ DVD Extras: n\/a Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a Genre: Drama \/ Comedy Synopsis: After saving the life of a suicidal fat kid, a down & out punk rock guitarist tries to exploit the debt owed to him. Special Features: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[1302,1301],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1ge","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4850"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4858,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4850\/revisions\/4858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}