The movie Beware the Gonzo is not about the writer Hunter S. Thompson, who invented what is now known as “Gonzo Journalism,” but about his latest imitator, Eddie Gilman, who, in a pique of adolescent self-important fervor, has dubbed himself Gonzo Gilman. It sort of has a nice ring to it, but it sounds too tinny to be taken seriously. Gilman is a somewhat nerdy boy on the staff of his prep school’s student newspaper, and he’s trying to do the right thing, but having trouble figuring out how to do it the right way.

The paper’s editor is a popular jock with serious collegiate ambitions, and he tears the guts out of Eddie’s stunning investigative piece about a skinny, red-headed easy target being seriously bullied.

In what at first appears to be nothing more than a high school fantasy, Eddie teams up with a troupe of other nerds, enlists the help of an attractive girl with an undeserved bad reputation, and–guess what?–starts his own underground newspaper to tell it like it really is behind the school’s genteel facade, and to fight for “truth, justice, and freedom.”

You can imagine all the feather ruffling that ensues. But Eddie’s ego eventually gets too big for him to control, as can only be expected from a kid who starts calling himself “Gonzo,” and all kinds of teen troubles multiply like breeding rabbits. Although the movie’s lessons are necessarily sophomoric, given the nature of the story, I enjoyed the film well enough to not regret spending the 94 minutes in the theater, but I wonder what this film is doing at the Tribeca Film Festival. I would have thought it more likely to encounter this type of fare on network television.

A particularly bright spot in the film is Campbell Scott’s fine performance as Gonzo’s perhaps too lenient father. But his leniency is not born of laziness or indifference. He encourages his son to take controversial stands so that Eddie will establish himself as a strong thinking individual. In contrast, the boy’s mother wants Eddie to demure, so as to not risk his chances of attending a top university.

The best part of the movie is Gonzo’s quest to expose the truth about the very bad food being served each day in the school’s cafeteria. This reminded me of chef Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution that just finished its run on TV, so it made me smile.

My first day spent scampering all around the Tribeca Film Festival was quite hectic yet pleasantly rewarding. At a press party, I had the chance to speak with Geoffrey Alan Rhodes and Steven Eastwood, co-directors of a film called Buried Land about “a valley of ancient pyramids” predating those in Egypt that can be found “under the hills of central Bosnia.” Geoffrey and Steven look more like punk rockers than movie directors, and their enthusiasm for the film is contagious. They told me that they made the film because they wanted to explore why people will persist in believing unprovable, even irrational claims in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.

I plan on seeing this film the first chance I get.