The film follows the lives of Ben and Virgil, two overachieving high school students whose lives are initially consumed entirely by the question of how to make themselves even more appealing on a college application. As a measure of rebellion and a way to assert themselves outside of the limited confines of a college application, they form a "mafia" ring of sorts with two friends. They start out by providing cheat sheets for money. They progress to stealing school property, and ultimately, begin dealing drugs.

In the end, the central theme of the movie is one of control over one's own life, and how quickly that control can be lost even when it appears that the exact opposite is true. The action is fast-paced, the dialogue is crisp and sharp, and the characters are all memorable and textured. Virgil is perhaps the most memorable character from a film in years.

This movie is intelligent and stylish movie making at its finest.

Juxtaposing this movie alongside the more benign The Debut is a bit ironic, I think. While The Debut is really about Asian-Americans (in this particular case the Filipino-American community) Better Luck Tomorrow is not about a particular community but speaks to a universal theme of growing up in America. To call it an Asian American movie is, I think a bit of a misnomer. It succeeds as a dark, sassy film, but it fails when it tries to be unconventional. That this breakout movie by Justin Lin is Asian American because of its director and its characters I will grant it. The theme though it is not uniquely Asian - taking for granted that such can be describes as a state. Anyway, this does not take away from the sensitivity with which Lin treats the characters and the angst that they experience - for that this movie, I feel, deserves it accolades. The sad truth is that it is not a movie of what can happen but what is happening. In this case I would have to defer to the viewer to make heads or tails of the excess of the movie.

Miguel Llora