I don’t come across a lot of films that make me feel anything and when I do, its usually just basic gut reactions to cool explosions and special effects blockbusters that I forget about minutes after leaving the theatre. There are some movies that will reside in your mind for more than a couple hours, that you want to re-watch just to try to get back the feeling that you had while you were watching it and The Wackness is a movie that does just that.

The movie stars Josh Peck (you may or may not recognize him from his starring role in the Disney show Drake and Josh) as Luke Shapiro, an adolescent drug dealer in New York during the mid 90’s. Peck’s character is a real departure from his slapstick comedy role on television but he does an admirable job in his first theatrical starring role portraying a sexually frustrated teen during his last summer as a high school graduate before moving on to college. Co-starring alongside Peck is Sir Ben Kingsley as Dr. Jeffrey Squires, a pot smoking mid life crisis suffering therapist who wants to re-live his teen years through Shapiro and his daughter Stephanie played by Olivia Thrilby who you might remember from Juno as Juno’s best friend.

The movie is littered with references from the period (fancy that I can call it a period and not sound like a tool) whether it be a Forest Gump poster on the side of a bus, or pages in a newspaper covered with O.J. Simpson’s mug or the constant references to Rudy Juliani’s crusade on drugs and the homeless. I can count the number of times I’ve been to New York on one hand so I have no idea what to expect from the city beyond what I’ve seen in movies, read in books and played in video games, but what I can say is that the city I saw in the movie seemed really dirty and pretty at the same time. The city doesn’t know what it is, has different sides to its personality kind of like the main character. I won’t belabour the point that the city seemed like it had a smell, a touch and a feel to it that came across well and that I thought was worth mentioning.

Shapiro and Squires are a couple of losers that find each other through their common interest in the smoking of marijauana and also through Shapiro’s unrequited feelings towards Stephanie, Squires’ daughter, who he goes to school with but who doesn’t know that he exists. Stephanie is part of the cool crowd (aka the rich crowd) and Shapiro is on one of the lower rungs on the high school social ladder. The experiences that the writer/director Jonathan Levine weaves into the character are both timeless and culture spanning, making you instantly identify with Shapiro and the problems that he has to deal with. There are a couple of story lines woven throughout the film such as Shapiro’s turbulent home life with his parents, or Squires’ emotional distancing from his wife, but the important one and the one that hits home the most is Shapiro and Stephanie’s summertime romance. Shapiro is the everyman that you can’t help but root for, and his love affair with the girl of his dreams is a dream most guys can relate to.

Possibly the most important part of the movie is the music. What you get in The Wackness is a snippet of a Hip Hop symphony, a slice of the greatness that existed for that particular time in musical history. Some of the best Hip Hop artists of the time were releasing their best music, and the soundtrack is sprinkled with gems like Notorious B.I.G’s What, Faith Evan’s You Used to Love me, Craig Mack’s Flava in Your Ear, Nas’s The World is Your, A Tribe Called Quest’s Can I Kick It? and the list goes on and on, mixing it up a little bit with some Mott the Hoople and some reggae by the Pioneers. The soundtrack was so slick that I actually BOUGHT IT. I’ve never bought a movie soundtrack before, but I couldn’t help it this time. The music of the Wackness is like another character in and of itself, drawing you into the world of the movie and back in time like a symponic time machine.

So if you’re looking for a diamond in the rough, and you were born in the 80’s, and grew up in the 90’s, check out The Wackness, then tell someone else about it, you’ll be glad you did.

p.s. If anyone has suggestions for any other diamonds in the rough, please leave a comment bellow so that we can all check it out. And if you got mad love for the soundtrack click dis link to find a full tack list yo! The movie also has a fly ass website. It’s da bomb.