recommended

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

A Teen road move almost good as Superbad! Insane and nonsense. Just like life.

15 year old delinquent skater girl Freddie (Joey King) leaves suburban San Diego to join Nick and his group of petty criminal druggies. When a needle is found in the van by LAPD, she takes the fall and in short order, she gets released from jail. It's a rough neighborhood and she skirts danger every step of the way. Meanwhile, Nick is trying to close a deal with Donny.This is trying to be quirky indie but mostly, it comes off as quirky lowlife stupid. Freddie is suppose to be a smartass but she's not so smart. I don't blame Joey King whom I hope for better things. It's all in the writing. Freddie has no common sense or any sense for that matter. She's written as a smart character who does dumb things. She is too annoying and too self-destructive to root for. Joey King can't play dumb anyways. This could still work as a night road trip through LA but the movie keeps going back to Nick, Donny, and the rest of them. As flawed as Freddie is, Joey King is still compelling enough to make this work but Jena Serbu doesn't know where is the best part of the story.

This movie makes light of a completely insane and self destructive lifestyle centered around a 15 yr old girl that runs away from her single mom and brother. All her friends are junkies and HARD drug dealers. She takes the wrap for a needle her older guy friend had stashed and is then released on her own in the middle of the night. She almost gets gang raped, she smokes crack for the first time like it's no big deal, she has a pervert pleasure himself while giving her a ride, and then gets drugged and sold for $200 by someone posing as a nice guy to some man that looks around 50 yrs old.. and narrowly escapes that... I've lived and seen the dark side of the "life style" this film makes light of. It's not funny and it's not a subject to joke about. Pure deceptive trash that kids will see and think this "life style" is fun and cool. They'll find out it isn't after it's too late though. This movie could not send a worse message to "teens".

The whole movie is chaotic. It follows the story of a 15years old who is so spoiled and bored of her life that decides to hop on a journey to find some adventure and she is accompanied by her junkie friends trying to sell coke and the movie is kinda based on drugs & gangs. Joey King does a good job playing Freddie which is inspired by Writer-Director's life (Jena Serbu) . You may even feel for Freddie through her dark unsafe journey when she shed some tears and say "I'm just too tired to be murdered!"Anyway "Smartass" ain't a good word to describe the 15years old protagonist of the movie or the movie itself .It Sends some bad messages to young people out there to follow what she did. So if you really have nothing better to do and you're really bored and into these type of fast-paced absurd comedies and wanna have some fun, instead of doing what Freddie (main character) did, just watch some movies. Smartass is one!