Crossing the Bridge

Mike Binder's directorial debut (he previously scripted the superior teen comedy Coupe de Ville) is a self-consciously wrought portrait of the artist as a young man; a series of comic and melancholy vignettes in the vein of Stand by Me and Diner. It's a likeable, engagingly woolly affair, the story of three friends dragging their feet after high school, pondering whether they should grow up and go to college or run drugs over the bridge from Canada and make some money - or both. This is one of those movies where a rough-and-ready game of football is endowed with near-metaphysical significance. But that's how middle-aged lads like to remember their youth, and there's usually a well-turned gag to undercut the nostalgia. Charles is good as the aspiring writer, but Threesome co-star Baldwin steals the movie from him all over again.