Outside Providence MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +1 1/2 Content: -3

Tim Dunphy (Shawn Hatosy) isnt a good student, hangs out with the wrong crowd, and spends most of his free time getting high or drunk. When he and his friends run into a parked police car during one of their wild binges, his blue-collar father (Alec Baldwin) sends him to a New England prep school called Cornwall Academy. Still trying to live the same wild lifestyle, he catches the attention of the dorm director and the dean. When he invites his new girlfriend, Jane (Amy Smart), up to his room where he and his friends are drinking and doing drugs, Mr. Funderburk catches them in the act. And Janes academic future is threatened. Tim begins to realize the consequences of his destructive lifestyle and is determined to set things right for Jane. OUTSIDE PROVIDENCE manages to teach some hard lessons about life but is missing a few things like inspirational characters and a good plot. While marketed as a wild teen comedy, its not the kind of feel-good movie thats likely to draw large crowds.

Tim and his friends are constantly smoking pot, popping pills and drinking hard liquor, and it all seems to be loads of fun. But when his girlfriends future is threatened and a friend dies in a car accident because of drugs, we finally see some of the negative consequences of such behavior. However, this does not make up for other offensive content. There is no sexual intercourse but Tim and Jane are shown kissing and caressing several times, on the couch, in the dorm room, and on the beach. Crude comments about the female and male anatomy, slang terms for homosexuality and comments about unconventional sex poison the dialogue. And obscene language includes 49 f words and 33 s words, along with an assortment of other crude sexually related obscenities. Even Tims nickname is sexually suggestive. And in one crude scene a boy is heard gratifying himself in the dark as part of a school prank. OUTSIDE PROVIDENCE, while teaching a positive lesson or two, is too crude and obscene to make the cut.

Preview Reviewer: Cliff McNeely
Distributor: Miramax Films, 375 Greenwich, NY, NY 10013