The Wackness

Picture and sound quality are good, with a choice of 2.0 or 5.1 stereo. And the extras package is OK, if not particularly ambitious. Time In A Bottle, a short ‘making of’ doc has the usual behind the scenes footage and rounds up all the main actors for a chat – as well as writer/director Jonathan Levine and the principal producers, who all give off an ‘ex-stoner/hip hop fan’ vibe that suggests real-life inspiration for Luke’s adventures wasn’t hard to find.

It’s all a bit ‘everybody was SO talented and SUCH a pleasure to work with’ but the stars are engaging company (Kingsley in particular) and it doesn’t outstay its welcome. But more info (or even separate docs) on the film’s key background elements, such as the music (especially given that Biggie Smalls, subject of new biopic Notorious, looms so, er, large) or the ‘zero tolerance’ policy of Mayor Giuliani, would have been interesting.

Four short deleted scenes fill some of the film’s gaps (especially in Squires’ relationship with his wife and stepdaughter) and one in particular, where Luke weighs out his weed packages while in full graduation robes, sum up its protagonist beautifully. A trailer rounds off a package that’s perfectly adequate but, like the film itself, never quite fulfils its potential.