A troubled young person runs afoul of the law and is placed under the supervision of a quirky older man who helps the teenager resolve anger issues through physical training.

      A “new kid” at a school dominated by a snobbish, self-centered clique makes an alliance with younger, less popular kids and overturns the existing social structure.

      A nonconformist walks out on a team at a crucial moment, then returns to face smoldering resentment and shake up the teammates’ meek conformity.

      Stick It, the gymnastics-based teen film currently playing at Carmike Cinemas, draws on these and other common motifs to create a reasonably entertaining, though hardly innovative, entertainment.

      When Haley Graham (Missy Peregrym) is busted for trespassing and property damage, she is sent to a gymnastics academy run by gruff Burt Vickerman (Jeff Bridges), a faded former star best known for the high injury rate among his charges and empty promises to the mothers of wannabe Olympians.

      Of course, the reigning prima donna (Vanessa Lenges) resents the attention given to Haley – especially when we learn that Haley was once a world-class gymnast who abandoned the U.S. national team on the verge of winning a championship.

      Stick It adds a tinge of subversion to the otherwise ho-hum plot through its recurrent criticism of the rather arbitrary rules governing the sport – rules that were part (but only part) of Haley’s original departure from competition.

      The criticism is expressed through a funny fantasy sequence in which the middle-aged judges, clad in business suits, perform the gymnasts’ arduous routines, and through a more serious rebellion during the climactic national championships.

      Peregrym bears a physical resemblance to the young Hilary Swank, who first came to widespread notice in 1994’s The Next Karate Kid, a film from the same family tree as Stick It.  Like Haley, Swank’s character had to learn to quench her own anger through disciplined physical training by quirky Mr. Miyagi (the late Pat Morita).

      Swank, of course, went on to win two Oscars (for Boys Don’t Cry in 2000 and Million Dollar Baby in 2005).  I wouldn’t project a similar career for Peregrym, but she is certainly adequate for the emotional demands of this film.

      Not so Bridges, who is too emotionally distant even for his washed-up character.  He is stiff and somewhat flat in his early encounters with Haley, and never really expresses much emotion – even when his charges triumph both in the competition and life.

      A film like this depends as much on the stunts as the acting, and Stick It provides lots of convincing gymnastics action.  Only one of the significant roles is played by an actual gymnast – Maddy Curley, an academic all-American from the University of North Carolina – but all the girls look plausible, and the stunt doubles take on the really hard stuff, anyway.

      Stick It doesn’t aim high, but at least it hits what it aims at.  For its core audience, that is likely to be enough.

 This review appeared in the Aberdeen American News on April 30,  2006.

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This page last updated on May 11, 2006.