Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7204 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-07-17
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 85 minutes

Amazon.com
"Their cheer blew like a bulimic after Christmas dinner," sneers Lisa (Marla Sokoloff from Dude, Where's My Car?), a bitter B-squad cheerleader who has it in for the A squad. She's come to the police to solve the mystery of a local bank robbery--a story that begins when head cheerleader Diane (Marley Shelton, Pleasantville, The Bachelor) and star quarterback Jack (James Marsden, X-Men, Disturbing Behavior) fell in love. Before you know it, Diane's knocked up--but she and Jack are delighted and decide to get married. Their parents disown them immediately, so the young couple ends up in a crappy apartment, working low-wage jobs. They're both so unrelentingly earnest and cheerful that they won't lose heart, but Diane soon realizes that their incomes won't support their impending twins. Then, one night as she and her squad (including Mena Suvari of American Beauty) are watching Point Break, they get the idea to rob a bank... Sugar & Spice, a broad satire of high school hierarchy, is set to a sparkling pop soundtrack and features many, many shots of cute cheerleaders in tight sweaters and short skirts. The cast is enthusiastic; Sokoloff in particular seems to savor her atypically nasty role. Also featuring cameos by Jerry Springer, Kurt Loder, and an almost unrecognizable Sean Young (Blade Runner, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective). --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker
The original title was "Sugar & Spice & Semiautomatics," but that was before Columbine. With the dark comedy of Mandy Nelson's screenplay toned down, the result is a teen movie that's an unappealing mix of the generic and the arch. Not that the premise wasn't promising: five pompom girls (of which Mena Suvari and Marley Shelton are two) rob a local bank branch so that one of them, who's pregnant, will be able to raise her twins in proper American comfort. The director, Francine McDougall, twirls the material around with a music-video slickness, but the movie still feels schizophrenic and, for all the nubile perkiness of its actresses, flat. -Michael Agger
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Seems funny but mostly amauterish.
Sugar and Spice is a silly dark comedy but the cast does bring some marginal life to this film especially James Mardsen and Marley Shelton. Mena Suvari plays a cheerleader again! What's with this girl? get some range. Marla Sokoloff does her best b!%&h impression but the premise is pretty lame, these girls will do anything to get out of a bad situation, even rob a grocery store. The only thing I liked about this movie was the music, I regret watching this choppy mess.

A Tale by a Girl in Green
In a police station in a midwestern town, an impatient and irreverent Lincoln High School B-Squad cheerleader named Lisa Janusch (Marla Sokoloff) begins her testimony about a recent robbery at a local supermarket bank branch, which, for her, included a very close confrontation with one of the perpetrators.
Noticeably, when she is not in her red, white, and blue cheerleading uniform, her predominant color of apparel is green--a color that symbolizes her envy of the two central figures in this story, the captain of the cheerleading A-Squad, Diane Weston (a deceptively mild and innocent looking Marley Shelton), and the star quarterback, Jack Bartlett(a toothy James Marsden, who has a rather demonic beauty).
The adults are viewed from Lisa's teenaged perspective. That is to say as dorky and out of touch, and her lack of respect for them could not be more obvious.
But she directs most of her venom at Diane in commentary that very thinly veils her envy of Diane's beauty, popularity, and upbeat attitude, especially since she herself is coming out of an ugly duckling phase.
Jack Bartlett is a recent transfer student to Lincoln High, and Lisa cannot hide her bitterness over the fact that no other girl besides Diane ever had a chance of winning him once the two literally collided with each other at a pep rally.
Their relationship takes an unexpected turn when Diane becomes pregnant by Jack. While he boasts about impending fatherhood to his teammates on Prom Night, the same news is met with emotion, some apprehension and ultimately support by Diane's fellow A-Squad members including the pious Hannah Wald(Rachel Blanchard), the Conan O'Brien obsessed Cleo Miller (Melissa George), the scholarly Lucy Whitman(Sarah Marsh), and the gruff Kansas Hill ( Mena Suvari), whose mother(Sean Young) is doing a prison term--from which a major plot point arises.
Expelled from their respective homes, Jack and Diane take up residence in a seedy apartment with a landlord of questionable repute, are compelled to find jobs (Jack's blatant honesty and ineptitude combine to cost him a few of those), and deal with school, sports, and cheerleading combined, and the situation gradually takes its toll.
During a sleepover with the A-Squad members, Diane comes up with the idea of robbing the bank branch where she works, after lamenting her moneyless plight, as she watches a tape of Keanu Reeves in "Point Break". While Lucy objects to the idea, Kansas is the first to support it, expressing a willingness to add to her own family's dubious history.
The girls pay a visit to Kansas' mother and her inmates, and get a tip on where to buy ammunition for the heist. They are led to Hank "Terminator" Rogers (W. Earl Brown), who agrees to waive the fee for the contraband rifles if the girls agree to let his daughter, Fern (Alexandra Holden) join the squad.
Interspersed with all this are Lisa's skewered views of Fern's performance at the winter pep rally and her refusal to take responsibility for her own failure to impress the crowd at that event.
There is an amusingly precarious scene when Kansas' grandmother(Claudia Wilkins) almost catches the girls with the chest full of ammo as they are in the basement of Kansas' house that illustrates the need for the older generation to be a little less naive and pay attention to what the youngsters are really up to.
After learning that Jack sold the intended getaway car, the girls find a less-than-desireable way to travel. Donning Betty Doll masks and costumes( Lucy, who initially bowed out, rejoins them disguised as Nixon), they carry off the heist, unaware that Lisa is witnessing the deed and has gathered evidence against them.
The hysteria over the robbery leads to wrongful accusations while the real culprits go on with their lives. For a brief time, Diane enjoys the items bought for her forthcoming twins with the ill-gotten gains, and rationalizes what she has done.
But when the law catches up to A-Squad, events take an unexpected turn, and the girls are released from their holding cell.
The comical ending reveals the fate of each squad member, and a fun sing-along by the Weird Al Yankovic sound-alike group, Size 14.
My final recommendation regarding Francine McDougall's twisted farce: Let it amuse you as much as possible, kids. But don't try this in real life!

LAUGH OUT LOUD FUN!!
This is a laugh filled movie with goofy dumb yet likable characters.
Very impressed with the comedy talents of James Marsden. The score is quite good as the ending credits roll. Wish I could find the soundtrack CD.