THE F**K-IT LIST, an obviously play on The Bucket List, is not the worst thing to come to Netflix? If that question sounds to you like a back handed compliment, it kind of is. It’s watchable, it’s a movie, it’s not abysmal…but would I ever watch it again? Probably not. It’s just…there. It makes you wonder how movies like this get made yet there are a bunch of good low budget scripts out there desperate to get green lit, but for some reason or another they don’t. This movie could’ve been much better than it is. Instead of being The Bucket List, where Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman actually do a lot of the things they write down, the protagonist in this movie video blogs a bunch of stuff that he ends up not doing, but goes viral anyway to inspire a lot of kids to do their own F**k-It lists in life. If the movie had shown him doing things on his list and then in turn getting more viral, the film’s message might’ve actually been earned and had been clearer. This review is going to be insanely short because I don’t know much to say about it. The actors and actresses are decent and you even got some recognizable names such as Jerry O’Connoll, Natalie Zea, Madison Iseman, Andrew Bachlor, and Peter Facinelli, that do a fine job in their small roles. But the real problem is that you have to suspend belief in a lot of what happens in the film, specifically the choices of the protagonist.

This is a long synopsis, but per IMDB, The F**k-It List is described as: “Brett Blackmore is a high school senior whose exemplary GPA and college resume hides the fact that he’s unintentionally sold his childhood for a future he’s not even sure he wants. When his high-school senior prank goes wrong, his life crumbles before his eyes. In frustration he launches the F**k-It List – of all the things he wishes he’d done but was too afraid. The list goes viral and touches a nerve with teenagers everywhere, exposing the educational-industrial complex as a money-machine designed to encourage anxiety-ridden parents to sell their kids into years of Tiger-Mom style servitude. Brett decides he’s going to break free – and make a run for a future of his own design.” Let’s get to the suspension in belief shall we? It’s really the only problems I have with this “okay” film other than Brett not doing much on his list. First off, the “senior prank goes wrong” scenario, is really not his fault. A couple of kids sneak into the school to hack into the computers, possibly to change some things (doesn’t really say), and one of the idiots steps on a gas pipe and breaks it. They go and get Brett to see if he can help, but he can’t and tells them all to get out of there as the room starts filling up with gas. The whole fucking school explodes (no one is hurt or killed) and he takes the rap. Yet…it wasn’t his fault? If I was him, even with a future I didn’t want, there is no fucking way I would’ve taken the rap for that extreme of shit. Also, the actor that plays Brett Blackmore, Eli Brown, is way too good looking and looks like he has a “fuck it” attitude in his face to be believable as a valedictorian let alone a decent kid.

Also, Brett doesn’t get arrested and the only consequences for his decision to take the rap is that he doesn’t get his high school diploma and that the 7 out of 8 ivy league colleges he was accepted to, take back their offers. But then that doesn’t really matter anyway as Harvard eventually reaches out after he goes viral and asks him to send an essay to possibly get into their elite college anyway. It’s very bizarre and while the film takes it seriously and not as one big joke, there is just no way in fucking hell any of that would happen, other than going viral…maybe. I get the messages of the future of young adults, how we need to make our own life altering decisions and to not just follow the wishes of our parents, but I don’t think the events that happen in this film warrant morals of that type. It’s just a very odd, yet somewhat watchable film. In fact, you’ve seen this teen angst film plenty of times before and needless to say, all those other films do a better job with the content than this one did. Add to the insult and injury? The co-writer and director, Michael Duggan, was nominated for a Primetime Emmy for being a producer of Law & Order. How…what…did….did he like bang his head and get the idea for this weird movie, or did he watch The Bucket List high and thought he should make a teen movie about it but a play on words? I have a feeling those questions would elicit answers that were more interesting than this film. Man, some of these title I keep hitting play on, I’m saying “fuck it” myself. I need to start thinking things through.