Fat Kid Rules The World (2012)

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

"Fat Kid Rules the World" is a title to a film that sounds like it is not all that great. When it comes to films, you should not judge a book--or in this case a movie--by its cover. In this case, I gave the film a shot and it was what I feared it would be, a slow moving snooze-fest.Based off the young adult novel of the same name by author KL Going, "Fat Kid Rules the World" follows an overweight teenager named Troy (Jacob Wysocki) who has no friends, a deceased mother, an athletic younger brother (Dylan Arnold), and a stern and stoic father (Billy Campbell). Troy ends up meeting Marcus (Matt O'Leary), a guitar player who is homeless and a drug addict. Troy and Marcus form a friendship, Marcus helping Troy come out of his shell and express himself, and Troy helping Marcus by being in a band with him, and at the end, helping him with his drug addiction.If you like movies about people in the lifespan of teenagers to young adults where they find out some stuff about themselves and become more confident or they change their life around, you will probably like this film. If you are looking for a movie to watch on a lazy rainy day, look somewhere else because this film is a bore. Five minutes of watching this film feels like thirty minutes in the real world where you are watching the movie.In a film like this, the chemistry between the two leads is what can make or break the movie. Troy and Marcus never feel like they are actually friends, but more like Marcus is being paid by someone to pretend to be Troy's friend and Troy is just following Marcus's every command without any thought on his part. The importance of the relationship to Troy is also bogged down by the addition of two additional friends (Lili Simmons and Tyler Trerise), taking away the importance because now Marcus is not Troy's only friend.None of the characters of the movie are all that interesting, with the exception of Troy's dad who is ironically the most stoic character in the whole film. When your one interesting character is the one who shows little to no emotion, you know you have a problem."Fat Kid Rules the World" does not fall to the problems as other movies based on books where they are viewed as bad for the simple reason of the movie is not as good as the book. That is still the case with "Fat Kid", but the changes made from the book to better suit the movie do not work for the movie and the movie comes across as the team behind the film were given the plot points and the basic synopsis of the novel and were told to make a movie based on it without understanding the book in the first place.

I'll always think of Matthew Lillard as Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo movies of my childhood and that laid back personality seems to be fed into his hard work too. Fat Kid Rules The World is a real indie treat. Although it takes on the tired high school archetype (not alone in freshening it up with the delightful 21 Jump Street this year), it's about the characters as people, not as stereotypes. It's the protagonist Troy, played by Jacob Wysocki, who makes the journey worthwhile. He's wonderfully relatable in his self-deprecating fantasies and bursts of teenage horniness. Here he finds not only direction in life but someone to share it with too. It's a great feel-good archetype that this film really makes work with its great soundtrack and sense of humour. Although perhaps Matt O'Leary's Marcus feels a little too contrived in his role to fit in the Kurt Cobain grunge rocker who throws far too much kindness onto Troy than is believable, the film otherwise makes great use of its side characters, particularly Troy's father, the army type with surprising compassion. Unfortunately the film suffers from indie cinema traits of flat cinematography and lighting which does weigh the film down quite a bit but otherwise it's one of the most watchable films of the year.7/10

First, let me say, congratulations to Jacob Wysocki for a wonderful performance in FKRtW. His Bath Boys history on YouTube has allowed for many doors to open -- and luckily for us, this is one of the doors that opens and reveals his talents.When it comes to the story, I was absolutely engaged and excited to experience that trials and tribulations of Troy, even if sometimes they weren't pretty or euphoric, whereas Matt O'Leary I felt as miscast. His struggles weren't believable and I felt almost took away from overall story. It was almost as if the actor was trying to glorify Matthew Lillard's (who also directed) performance in Scream.If it weren't for Mr. Wysocki or Billy Campbell (who plays the role of Troy's father brilliantly) or even the small role of Dayle (played by Dylan Arnold) then this would've been a huge miss.Overall, the movie was fantastic. However, due the a very cheesy ending, this otherwise 9/10 film gets 7/10 from me.

I just want to give it up to the first time director. a nice small inspirational movie. movies like this show that the indie film world isn't dead, thanks to all involved in the movie. I remember seeing a trailer for this movie at an independent theater and just seeing the actors involved and the story was enough to hook me. this movie hits everything from social alienation, to coming of age story. it delves into what it's like growing up on different sides of the fence. in one family you have a kid who's mother died leaving him with a military father who nows nothing about his kids. the other side of the fence shows you the drugged out punk rocker ready to cause mayhem and destruction mainly to himself. what these two character's don't realize is that their misfortunes and problems end up combining and ultimately save them. I hope to see more from the two main actors. I also hope to see more from director Matthew lillard.