John Tucker Must Die DVD Review

John Tucker (played by Desperate Housewives’ Jesse Metcalfe) is the star basketball player, the most handsome guy in his high school and all of the girls want to date him. He takes advantage of his status by dating them all. He secretly dates as many girls as he can and this is seen by a new girl watching the way things work in the new town, much in the way Mean Girls covered already. A group of the girls get together and decide that revenge is the best way to feel better for being used, much in the way First Wives Club and 9 to 5 covered as well. The only problem with their plan is that the most popular guy seems nearly invincible to his adoring peers.

As attractive as the supporting cast of females are, it is a fantastic choice to have cast a girl like Brittany Snow as the lead actress. She is constantly overshadowed by her mother (Jenny McCarthy) and she doesn’t have the obvious beauty that the other girls have, but there is a sweetness in her voice that will grow on you as the film progresses. As she becomes more endearing and sweet they give her a make-up to match and she is the obvious focus when onscreen.

The problems with destroying John Tucker are the problems with revenge. It doesn’t leave any real satisfaction and it requires a moral collapse of the characters, but the entire film sets up him deserving punishment. Once the film has backed itself into a corner there are a few awful speeches where everyone realizes the error in their way, but there is no satisfaction. The only way that the filmmakers can think to get themselves out of the corner they have painted is by having a random food fight that miraculously solves all of the problem, or at least distracts us from realizing that they are not solvable. Some people are jerks and sometimes there is nothing you can do about that except ignore them and get over the fact that popularity is ignorant of integrity.

The DVD contains unrated and theatrical versions of the film, but I couldn’t find anything in the unrated version that would have changed the PG-13 rating. The DVD also has a commentary track with director Betty Thomas and editor Mathew Friedman and a couple of other features. As well as theatrical and extended versions of the film, there are also full-screen and widescreen versions of the movie on a double sided disc. Each side has its own special features, including a dating quiz and deleted scenes. There are also a few featurettes.