The Prodigy

Tony, a gawky, geeky college freshman, trying (and failing miserably) to pledge his dad's old fraternity, is assigned the most menial of tasks by the frat membership in an effort to dissuade him, including giving a group of inner city youths a tour of the campus. Along on this tour is Nathan Jones (played by talentless newcomer Jeremy Isaiah Earl), a 12-year-old product of an abusive family, who, through a plot device so implausible that it's not worth mentioning here, comes to live with Tony and his low-life fraternity brothers. Soon, however, the head of the fraternity council, who's already got the frat in his crosshairs for prior infractions, spies the young Nathan, and tries to bust the boys for harboring a minor. Thus, to protect their charter, Tony and the frat brothers concoct an elaborate, and completely unbelievable, scheme to turn the runaway into an early admissions worthy child prodigy, a scheme complete with falsified admissions documentation and genius-worthy test scores. I had a tough time deciding which deserved a lower grade: the across the board wooden performances or the paint-by-number script, although the ham-fisted direction by co-writer McDougal rated a solid D-. Not recommended. (S. C. Nickles)