'Kids' puts high-school nostalgia to good use
The teen movie keeps renewing its lease over at the WB, so the multiplexes of this country continue to settle for 20-something horror. But ''Kids in America," a likeably salty public service announcement of a movie, evokes the right kind of high-school nostalgia. Written by Andrew Shaifer and Josh Stolberg, who also directs, ''Kids in America" dyes its teen roots with multicultural color, social politics, and an all-star-ish cast (George Wendt! Nicole Richie!), and stands boisterously on an anti-teen-apathy platform.
The movie is set at a suburban public high school where the principal (Julie Bowen, formerly of ''Ed") has kicked out the founder of the celibacy society for promoting safe sex and has expelled another student for her controversial diary entries. It takes an inspirational teacher (Malik Yoba, formerly of ''New York Undercover") to shake the remaining enrollees from their indifference to a woman unafraid to use the Patriot Act.
This is no regular teacher. He's a lapsed documentary polemicist. So naturally, he advises the main characters -- a white girl, an Asian-American girl, an African-American girl, a fat white guy, a gay white guy, a white hottie (male), and a white hottie (female) -- to channel their student films from selfish identity politics into more direct action. The principal is running for state schools superintendent, and to thwart her, the student body ''gets creative."
''Kids in America" makes surprising, if rudimentary, stabs at creating characters. The leader of the resistance is the white hottie (Gregory Smith, of ''Everwood") whose name, predictably, is Holden. He comes from a broken home and has begun an affair with the plain white girl (Stephanie Sherrin) who runs the newspaper. Her mother (an amusing Rosanna Arquette) is a hippie who loans out the house for the big talent show.
During the closing credits, we're shown the real-life inspirations for this story (the movie has been ripped from the headlines), and the disclosure suggests more politically complicated situations than the ones in the movie. But complexity would have just gotten in the way of its call to arms -- or to jazz hands. Not since the NBC version of ''Fame" has teen talent been used so unselfconsciously to stop adults from encroaching on their rights. These kids sing, dance, act, and rig electronics in the name of freedom. Debbie Allen would be proud.
Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. 