Underclassman

A smart-mouthed maverick cop (Nick Cannon) goes undercover at an exclusive private high school to see if the mysterious death of a reporter for the school paper is connected to a local hot-car ring. Brent Goldberg and David T. Wagner’s script (story by Wagner and Cannon) mentions Los Angeles-area landmarks and freeways, but it takes place in some bizarre universe where “boys” at exclusive high schools talk ghetto-tough, sport dozens of tattoos, play street basketball as part of the curriculum and don’t graduate until they’re nearly 30. The smart-mouth-maverick-cop genre never looked more shopworn and played-out than in this halfhearted, half-baked mess. Memo to Miramax Pictures: Beverly Hills Cop was over 20 years ago, and Cannon is no Eddie Murphy. The slovenly direction is by Marcos Siega.