Released in October 1999, “Drive Me Crazy” has a thoroughly unoriginal plot, plagiarizing themes and stories from a variety of other sources. Popular high school senior Nicole (Melissa Joan Hart) and anti-social slacker Chase (Adrian Grenier) pretend to date in order to make their crushes jealous. Spoiler alert – they end up liking each other in the process. It’s as if the production was nothing more than a failed attempt to squeeze one last hoorah out of an amazing decade of cinema.
I found it interesting that I started the 1990s as a Nickelodeon obsessed kid who loved watching Melissa Joan Hart on her iconic breakthrough program “Clarissa Explains it All.” She has appeared in several films from the era, including one of my Top 100 “Can’t Hardly Wait.” She’s fine from an acting standpoint but this script gives nothing at all to work with. The supporting cast is made of typical faces and tropes of the era. Susan May Pratt plays a hot troublemaker and Ali Larter is, for some reason, an uncool weirdo.
I love watching movies from my personal favorite era. One rare funny line has characters talking about cyberdating in its genesis. “Drive Me Crazy” has no nostalgia factor. It’s like they combined random things from other movies and wrapped them up into a second tier flick. It runs 90 minutes and gets boring within the first few scenes.
The ’90s were the best decade for HS movies. But this isn’t one of them.
