A somewhat standard high-school comedy and a campy dark mystery are fused together in Maureen Bharoocha‘s ambitious offering The Prank. Whilst much of the film rides on the fact you have to root for unlikeable archetypes – either outcast students Ben (Connor Kalopsis) and his feisty bestie Tanner (Ramona Young) or their evil-incarnate teacher (a biting Rita Moreno) – it eventually learns that you don’t always have to be a agreeable film to earn audience investment.
A typically studious pupil who knows his future rides solely on acing his grades, Ben is hoping he can follow in the footsteps of his deceased father by attending the same university. It’s a goal, at least, and its one that ultimately hangs in the grading balance of Moreno’s cruel physics teacher, Mrs Wheeler. Everyone hates Wheeler, and she seems to revel in such knowledge. Her latest power play is one that pushes the usually cordial Ben over the edge of sanity however, unwilling to accept her stance on a student cheating in her class. If said student doesn’t come forward, the whole class is failing. Enter Ben’s diabolical plan.
With a student mysteriously missing, Ben and Tanner hatch a scheme to pin this disappearance on Wheeler, framing the narrative that she’s responsible for their murder. Thanks to Tanner’s technology skills – and some less-than-convincing deep-fake engineering – the story goes viral beyond expectation. Of course, Ben and Tanner start to feel a little remorse for what they’ve done – Ben more so – and once the “prank” does its damage, Rebecca Flinn-White and Zak White‘s script manages to move beyond the expected beats it’s been playing and opts to humanise Wheeler, which ultimately shifts the back-end of the film towards a more sinister, blackly comic climax.
Once the news of the prank catches wind and Wheeler’s innocence becomes more of a murky area, The Prank surrenders to its camp mentality and starts to feel like the genre mash-up it had intended to be the entire time. Whilst the film’s first half isn’t nearly as wicked, Moreno’s committed performance constantly keeps it afloat; you just sometimes wish she was afforded a darker film to truly play with.
More a revenge-themed effort than a standard prank feature, Bharoocha’s black comedy may not always find the right balance in its genre mashing, but the eventual dark temperament that laces the film’s latter half and a no-holds-barred turn from Moreno means this Prank at least makes an impression.
THREE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Prank is screening as part of this year’s SXSW Film Festival, which is being presented in-person and virtually between March 11th and 20th, 2022. For more information head to the official SXSW website.
