The Preppie Connection (2016)

People are voting emotionally.

Memorable, crazy movie

Good concept, poorly executed.

An Exercise In Nonsense

A quality cinematic treatment of this infamous episode from the 1980s seems a worthy and ambitious project."The Preppie Connection" fails in this endeavor. For starters, the budget was simply not adequate for the scope of this project. Its meant to show the elite prep school environment of the early-1980s, yet its not even close to qualifying as a period piece. Frankly, I don't think the filmmakers even tried very hard in this dept. I attended a famously "preppie" college in the early-80s, and to me, the costume design here is off, and in a way that makes the costume designer(s) appears lazy.The acting performances and overall casting are average, nothing really very compelling or inspired from any of these young actors. Logan Huffman as the antagonist is the bright spot.In an overdone genre of film, this half-baked effort misses the mark on several levels. The filmmakers should have sought better funding, or scraped this project all together. They chose to walk the middle of the road so to speak, so they are left with a somewhat awkward, entirely forgettable film.

Movies based on a true story are always more interesting then the odd fictional movie. In The Preppie Connection it's all about a simple guy, Toby (played by Thomas Mann), that tries to fit in with the other high class students. He's secretly in love with Alex (played by Lucy Fry) and tries to impress her and her entourage by scoring weed, then cocaine, and later by smuggling the white powder from Columbia. It's an interesting and entertaining movie. The cast is well chosen and the storyline is very easy to follow. It shows what some people would do to impress others or to fit in, and it shows how cocaine can destruct a lot of lives. Certainly worth a watch.

Spoiler Alert !!!Great Movie. The two lead actors, Lucy Fry and Thomas Mann are destined for greatness. The actors are perfectly cast, seeing Alex's good looks fade away like Lindsey Lohan, until she literally disappears, is almost like a bellwether of the movie's trajectory. Ellis's decline from the king of the preppy universe to a beaten down, pathetic loser, is almost Shakespearean. His pathological betrayal of all his friends, his revenge on Toby and Alexis is mirrored in his face. By the end of the movie, his handsome face has turned into a psychotic Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow in Batman BeginsBut Alex is only a cipher, in love with no one, not Ellis, not Toby and not herself. Like the Cocaine itself, an empty vehicle that blows away like dust. The fact that Toby never sees Alex again is a metaphor for the coke itself.The most sexualized scene is when Alex is on the bus with her boyfriend touching his body but having sex with Toby as she locks her eyes on him. There is a moment she grabs Ellis as if to show Toby she is grabbing him while Ellis is hopelessly clueless about how much Alex is not in love with him.The only true love in the movie is Toby's father's love towards Toby. The lack of parental love and affection is the biggest force in the movie, which I think causes the suicide death of the girl, the underlying reason for Toby being in a world he does belong in and the source of the money that allows the rampant drug used. By not throwing in a clichéd scene of rich parents partying, the absence of the parents love is driven home by their absence in the movie.And Toby's mother, who somehow thinks she can reclaim the glory of her German family's past manipulates her son into going to this school where he knows he does not belong And she gets her way by sulking into a dark depression that only Toby can cure by capitulating to his mother's dreams. Another parent who's self obsession leads her child astray.The ending was great was the ending with the real life, model handsome Toby, as he talks about the five minutes before his bust and the five minutes after the bust, and then instead of showing redemption or reflection on his bad ways, he embraces the entirety of his descent by even saying he misses Ellis.

Based on a true story, a poor white kid tries to get in good with the rich privileged kids going to a fancy prep school by smuggling in drugs for them to take.I seen this drug tale before a dozen times, but the film is quite interesting to watch despite. Especially the lead actor Thomas Mann, who became big from Me, Earl, and a Dying Girl. Just like that movie, Mann's character narrates the story, in a very very similar fashion. Lucy Fry also played an interesting character as well as Logan Huffman who played one of the rich prep school kids. He did a fantastic job of being very unlikable to the point were you like to not like him. very nice.Worth sitting through.