Mean Creek is a stark, raw film about teenage kids that’s honest and real – but that doesn’t make it a good movie.

Unfortunately, its acute portrayal of teenage recklessness and its consequences is really the only thing that Mean Creek has going for it. By that I mean that, though it’s about teenagers doing stupid things, it’s not a film that’s aimed at teenagers in any way. In fact, most teenagers would probably say it’s boring. It’s certainly quite.

The story follows a handful of teenagers, one of whom (Rory Culkin) has been picked on by a bully (Josh Peck). The kids decide to pull a prank on him. They pretend to befriend him and then invite him on a boating trip where they plan to leave him at the lake alone and naked. Some of the boys begin to have reservations about going through with the prank while others are brash and gung ho about it. Things go bad and they end up accidentally drowning the bully – then they have to face up to the consequences.

Mean Creek is contemplative, but not always engaging. It’s an interesting character study, to see how each of these characters deal with the situation and with each other, but the characters themselves aren’t always interesting. The film certainly has something to say about teenage angst and universal guilt, I’m just not sure that it's anything particularly enlightening.

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