It’s extremely rare that I don’t finish anything. I’ve gone back and watched the last, sad season of a television series that I’d stopped watching just to make sure I got the whole experience. I have collected comic book series way past the point where I realized I was reading them for obligation. And I always make sure I finish a book and a movie.

Stay Cool is a 2009 movie written and directed by Mark Polish, who also stars as the protagoinst Henry McCarthy, a writer who has been invited back to his old high school 20 years after graduating to write the commencement speech to the graduating class. While he’s there, he decides to spend time “as a student”, going to school each day in order to get to know them. He’s also run into Scarlet Smith (Winona Ryder), the popular cheerleader, whom was his crush in high school and was the focus of his book (which has some passages used as voice-overs throughout read by Brian Austin Green’s “David Silver” … and no, I’m not kidding). All these years later, Scarlet seems to be into him, much to the chagrin of her ex, Brad (Marc Blucas); further complicating things is Shasta O’Neil (Hilary Duff), a senior who has a crush on Henry.

After watching a string of “let’s get together as old friends” movies, this seemed like a good one to add to the list. I love a good reunion movie (Grosse Pointe Blank being my favorite) and this had real promise. I’m not familiar with Mark Polish, but seeing a cast that included Winona Ryder (one of my–and many others’–teen actress crushes when I was in high school), Sean Astin, Jon Cryer, Chevy Chase, Lost‘s Josh Holloway, and Dee Wallace and Michael Gross as Henry’s Parents (yes, the mom from E.T. and Mister Keaton), I was intrigued.

According to the IMDb trivia, Polish had the movie taken away from him in post-production and after it was re-edited, had his name removed as writer and director. There’s not much that I could find online about what the film was intended to look like (although considering that search results these days are terrible, I’m not surprised), so I had to go with what was on the screen. It’s definitely formulaic in its setup. Henry’s the guy who left and was successful. Scarlet stayed behind, although working as a pharmacist isn’t exactly a terrible career so at least she’s gone somewhere. Henry’s got two crazy friends. And Shasta is supposed to represent what it would be like if Scarlet had returned his affections in high school.

I got halfway through the film, to the point where Shasta asked Henry to the prom and decided I was done. I don’t know if it’s because I’m around teenagers every day and to me the red line that he’s toeing is an eight-lane expressway, but that made me uncomfortable. So did Astin and Holloway’s characters, especially Astin’s, whose name is Phil but is called “Big Girl” and is portrayed as a pink and neon-wearing gay caricature (which is a shame because I like Astin as an actor). Henry as the protagonist is wishy-washy but likable enough and his and Ryder’s budding romance was one of the highlights, even if Ryder was missing the “bite” that she had in movies like Heathers and Reality Bites. Then again, Scarlet is neither Veronica nor Lelaina, so I guess she’s playing it correctly.

Anyway, I’m going to imagine that he gets the “right” girl at the end, or maybe he just leaves town not getting anyone. But I kept checking to see how much was left in the movie so often that I realized I just didn’t care. And I hate to be that cruel when talking about anything, but it’s the truth. Perhaps if Polish had been able to edit the movie the way he wanted, this would have been more intriguing, but when you have better movies out there with a similar premise, you don’t want to waste your time wondering “what if.”

Watch or Skip?

Skip