Scoring The Perfect Score

The movie The Perfect Score describes the plot of six high school seniors in Princeton, New Jersey to steal the answers for the SAT exam in order to achieve a perfect score on the test. The lead character Kyle, played by Chris Evans, comes up with the scheme when he and his best friend, Matty Mathews, played by Brian Greenberg star of the TV series “October Road,” fail to earn the required SAT score to be admitted into their colleges of choice.

The pair enlists the help of four other students to help them pull off their scheme of stealing the answers from the nearby Educational Testing Service headquarters. Each teenager is from a different background, ranging from the school’s salutatorian, Anna, to the class pothead, Roy. Each of them has their own reason for trying to beat the system and score well on the exam. It just so happens that the father of the character Francesca is the owner of the building in which the answered are stored. Through this connection the team is able to gain access to the blueprints of the building and a way inside. What seemed like a long-shot becomes a feasible plan, and the group pledges to execute their plot to steal the answers to the SAT and achieve, “the perfect score.”

The Perfect Score begins as a light-hearted, teen comedy movie. With the intro credits establishing the common teenager’s point of view of the SAT as the “Suck Ass Test,” the target audience effectively established. Jokes about smoking pot, sex, and high school relationships are strewn throughout the movie. For example, when asked what type of people score the highest on the SAT Roy replies, “Asian chicks. Middle-class Asian girls who watch less than an hour of television a day. They can't drive, but they can kick the shit out of the SAT.” The humor of the movie is fit for fans of other teen movies, such as American Pie, and Scary Movie.

Although the humor is a little predictable, the acting in the movie was surprisingly well. The movie has a few big name actors such as Scarlett Johansson who also starred in The Horse Whisperer and The Prestige. Scarlett performed exceptionally well (as always) in the movie as the “rebel teenager,” Francesca. Chris Evans and Bryan Greenberg also performed rather well in their role as best friends. Although I wouldn’t call any of the performances in this movie “memorable,” I was disappointed in Erika Christensen’s job at playing Anna Ross the class Salutatorian. The role seemed too forced and almost painful to watch at some parts in the movie.

Being produced by MTV films, I didn’t really expect too much out of this movie when I began to watch it. My initial suspicion seemed to be supported by when the character Matty stated, “The SAT did this. The SAT is pimping on my girlfriend,” after he found out his SAT scores were not good enough to join his girlfriend at Maryland University. However, as the movie progressed my opinion of it quickly changed. The rude humor was offset by rather insightful quotes such as, “I hate to say it, but there’s more money in filling bubbles than reading these days.” As the characters began to mesh and bond through their common struggle to steal the test scores in a style reminiscent of The Breakfast Club, I found myself becoming attached to the story and rooting for their success.

Although the script is a little predictable and cheesy at points, I was overall, pleasantly surprised with this film. As I mentioned earlier, I was not expecting to get very much out of this film, but in the end was glad that I had watched it. If you put aside the teenage humor, and Hollywood heist planning, the movie makes a fairly good case on the limitedness of standardized testing. If you are in the target audience, as I am, the movie is the perfect “no brainer” to watch in between study sessions, and I would recommend it to any high school or college student looking for a way to wind down after an exam.