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Revenge of the Drug Pushing, Gangbanging Nerds 

Crissa-Jean Chappell
Review of  Better Luck Tomorrow
(R) *

The cell phone won’t stop ringing. It drones with the urgency of a guilty conscience, like someone stuttering but never getting it out. There in the trampled grass, beneath the freshly churned slabs of dirt, lies the dead body of a rich boy. In his back pocket, the cell phone rings. Ben and Virgil aren’t listening. When the noise finally percolates into their thoughts, they leave their lawn chairs and start digging.

The jaded young Asian-Californians in Better Luck Tomorrow exist in a parallel universe—one based on cinematic conventions. This surreal blend of rapid-fire music videos, jittery TV commercials, and video game violence speaks of a mind which slices the world into bits and pieces instead of processes. Film school grad, Justin Lin, divides his debut feature into anecdotes like place settings at a table, as if they shared no organic connection to each other. He presents a view of his cartoony characters from the outside, never completely extracted from their setting.

Better Luck Tomorrow revolves around a gang of suburban teens who crack from the all-intensive schedule of college-bound geekdom. Their blurry days and nights are focused on SAT cramming, minimal wage slavery, after-school sports and resume-building acts of charity. According to Lin, this type of detail-driven intensity also applies to drug-pushing and murder. Looking back on his senior year, Ben (Parry Shen) confesses, “Grades were our alibi.” His creative thrill-seeking and criminal activity are excusable, so long as he passes chemistry.

Set in the unhurried sameness of Orange County, the manicured hedges and ice-cream-colored houses remind us of Blue Velvet’s attack on the smug middle class. Lin swaps David Lynch’s ant-ridden ear in the grass for a worm-infested hand. He borrows Tarantino’s slow-motion group swagger and blood-spattered snippets of Larry Clark’s Bully. But none of these moments feel emotionally authentic. Without social commentary, these incidents seem romanticized as acts of rebellion. Lin might be striving for an acid-barbed attack on Asian ambition, but like his characters, he’s sinking beneath the glamorous surface.

A well-constructed story depends on coherence. Even non-linear narratives, must contain a beginning, middle and end. One shouldn’t be able to take away scenes from the story without affecting its narrative. The parts of good structure must have two seemingly conflicting pieces—the incidents have to be unexpected, surprising, yet absolutely necessary. These have the greatest effect on the mind. When Lin’s characters defy logic, as when a study-session dissolves into an effects-laced gangbang, all his video trickery gives way to self-indulgence. The film is more about camera angles than moral questions. No surprise that its distributor, MTV films, has released it a year after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

The film’s more substantial threads, those that intend to smash ethnic stereotypes, are never fully developed. Ben joins the basketball team early in the film. He warms the bench, possibly as the team’s token Asian, but he can’t decide if he should feel offended. After all, he’s just another American boy from an affluent family (one we never see, since the film is devoid of adults). The only female role (played by Karin Anna Cheung) is clichéd as any blonde, blue-eyed crush object. The film’s ending unfolds like an uber-nerd fantasy, minus any perspective or point of view. A hot chick pulls up in a fast car. The hero jumps aboard and they zoom into the undefined horizon. At least the girl gets to drive.