The New Guy: Movie & DVD Review (2003)

(Originally published 2003)

As a study of one teen’s personal transformation from uber geek to uber stud, Ed Decter's "The New Guy" is something of a triumph, I suppose, if only because it manages to complete the task without the help of a special effects team. Otherwise, the movie itself is joyless dreck, another dumbed-down teen comedy fired out of Hollywood with all the crudeness of a spitball.

The film, from a script by David Kendall, is about the life and hard-luck times of Dizzy Gillespie Harrison (DJ Qualls of "Road Trip"), a geeky high school nerd whose penultimate humiliation in a life filled with humiliations comes fast and furious early on: After becoming sexually aroused during class registration, Dizzy has his manhood broken by the school's octogenarian librarian for the entire school to see.

It's an event that leads the wildly unpopular Dizzy to a meltdown, a makeover and a reawakening. Indeed, after being given antipsychotic drugs by the school's counselor (Illeana Douglas), he eventually breaks enough school rules to land himself in prison, where he meets a streetwise cellmate named Luther (Eddie Griffin)--and creates a new identity for himself with the help of Luther's ultra smooth "gangsta" moves.

Oddly incoherent in spite of its simplistic premise, the film does generate a handful of laughs as Luther teaches Dizzy how to fight dirty, cast a "crazy eye," and dance like a white boy pretending to be black. But the moment Diz changes his name to Gil and is transferred out of prison to a new school, where he successfully woos a busty cheerleader played by Eliza Dushku, "The New Guy" sinks faster than any joke in "Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise."

Peppered with parodies of "Braveheart," "Urban Cowboy" and "Patton"--not to mention a forgettable turn by Lyle Lovett as Dizzy’s father and some questionable cameos from Gene Simmons, Vanilla Ice, Kool Moe Dee, Tommy Lee, Henry Rollins and Tony Hawk--"The New Guy," not surprisingly, offers nothing fresh, nothing new.

It’s unlikely that anyone will show up to see it by accident, but by the time the film resorts to rolling a dwarf, they might wonder if they had.

Grade: D