Cheats (2002)

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Four high school friends use their various skills to create a crack team of academic cheaters in Cheats: Handsome (Trevor Fehrman), the ringleader who finds a way to squirrel out of anything; Sammy (Elden Henson), his childhood cohort, who's starting to wonder if honest effort might be more… More Four high school friends use their various skills to create a crack team of academic cheaters in Cheats: Handsome (Trevor Fehrman), the ringleader who finds a way to squirrel out of anything; Sammy (Elden Henson), his childhood cohort, who's starting to wonder if honest effort might be more rewarding than cheating; Victor (Matthew Lawrence), an up-and-coming thug with good looks; and Applebee (Martin Starr), who writes the smallest and most precise crib notes of all time. They've held it together until their senior year, when their conflicting morals create rifts that threaten their solidarity. Cheats wants to be a combination of a classic heist flick and a celebration of the outsider, like Rushmore; unfortunately, everything about the movie feels false, from its depiction of the high school hierarchy to the implausible schemes. Also featuring Mary Tyler Moore as the school principal. --Bret Fetzer