Mr Gibb would you like to take a seat over there? God damn man, someone get Chris Hanson on the line. Much like pewdiepie is the mr magoo of racism, the protagonist of The Good Student is the Mr magoo of inappropriate behaviour. Eyeballing, manhandling and other forms of harassment are the name of the game as our unlikely and unlikable hero stonewalls his way from awkward history teacher to social pariah to master manipulator in an ironic twist that this so called black comedy just doesn't pull off.
What The Good Student has for entertainment value though is that central character Ronald Gibb comes off as an astounding creep whilst the film asks for our intimate sympathy for the way that life has dealt him a bad hand. However, dead wife or not, the guy is still a creep, readily prone to violence and quotes American presidents like an evangelist would the bible, or the current president. This borderline predator is portrayed as a hero and that's fantastic. I mean, that's just grand.
The Good Student has some genuine merit to it such as it's engaging kidnapping plot and committed cast, but the central premise is so wrong and the unfolding of events so insane that the tonal shifts could simply not undergo as smoothly as the filmmakers would have wanted them to, which leaves to the film to having a lot of wtf about it and as a result, The Good Student is exactly the kind of film that made me want to start this series off in the first place.
In conclusion, The Good Student as a quirky comedy wildly misfires and has moments that will have you questioning what you have just seen. It's an oddity that is free on Youtube by the way and I think is good for at least one watching.
What The Good Student has for entertainment value though is that central character Ronald Gibb comes off as an astounding creep whilst the film asks for our intimate sympathy for the way that life has dealt him a bad hand. However, dead wife or not, the guy is still a creep, readily prone to violence and quotes American presidents like an evangelist would the bible, or the current president. This borderline predator is portrayed as a hero and that's fantastic. I mean, that's just grand.
The Good Student has some genuine merit to it such as it's engaging kidnapping plot and committed cast, but the central premise is so wrong and the unfolding of events so insane that the tonal shifts could simply not undergo as smoothly as the filmmakers would have wanted them to, which leaves to the film to having a lot of wtf about it and as a result, The Good Student is exactly the kind of film that made me want to start this series off in the first place.
In conclusion, The Good Student as a quirky comedy wildly misfires and has moments that will have you questioning what you have just seen. It's an oddity that is free on Youtube by the way and I think is good for at least one watching.