A "townie" of limited financial means but great ambition, Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson) is a self-made man. The captain of the crew team who leads his Ivy League school to victory after victory, he maintains a stellar grade point average while working in the school cafeteria. Though he has successfully escaped his working-class roots, and can easily obtain the upper-middle-class life of white-collar work and limited debt, he's dissatisfied. He wants the wealth and power that only the devil -- in the form of a secret society -- can give him.
In his first lead role, Jackson does a nice job as Luke McNamara, especially considering what's going on around him. One of the original Mighty Ducks, he became famous for playing Pacey on Dawson's Creek. Though he's only 21, he's got a balanced view of the Hollywood system. "Even if I didn't think it was a good movie," he told me in a fancy New York hotel, "I don't think I could have a bad time in the place that I am in my life.... I read the script and thought it was entertaining. Plus, last year I was hoping that I would be able to take a lead in a movie, because there are challenges inherent in that which hadn't been part of any of the other roles that I've had, regardless of the actual acting of the part. It was something that I wanted to see if I could do."
Jackson's curiosity and ambition is shared by his character Luke, who is tapped to join the most powerful secret society on campus, the Skulls. Producer Neal Moritz describes the movie as "The Firm set in college," and like the company in The Firm, the Skulls seem to know everything about everyone, and are corrupt enough to get away with murder in order to keep their secrets. After a simple initiation stunt (where he shows off his lower-class skill at picking locks), Luke is inaugurated into a world of tuxedos, supermodel prostitutes, sports cars, free tuition, and immediate acceptance to the law school of his choice. His position of power in the post-collegiate world is all but guaranteed. All he has to do in return is help them cover up the murder of his best friend, a reporter for the school newspaper who was doing a big exposé on the power and corruption of the secret societies on campus. Well, that's a price he doesn't want to pay, so he decides to stand up to the devilish secret society.
At this point, the logic of the movie completely disintegrates, the film loses track of its own identity (it idealizes wealth but wants to criticize it; it idealizes poverty while wanting to renounce it), and the well-meaning characters are revealed to be idiots. At the screening I attended, the audience eventually turned on the movie, laughing at each new and patently absurd plot twist, from the unattainable girl (Leslie Bibb, from TV's Popular) professing her love for Luke, to the old-fashioned "dual at 20 paces" climax.
Near the end of the movie, Luke is involuntarily imprisoned in a mental institution, where he becomes a heavily sedated lump of flesh. For me, this is The Skulls' key scene. If the college life portrayed here is a fantasy vision of college life; if the secret society and its corrupt elders are a fantasy vision of politics and authority; if Luke's role as working-class hero and upper-class ideal is unbelievable, then the movie works best as the dream of an insane person. The only thing missing is a framing device placing The Skulls in a mental institution, but heck -- you can just pretend it's there. That's what I did, and by doing so, I was actually able to enjoy the movie. Really.
