Contest
Contest
PG | 31 December 2013 (USA)
Contest Trailers

Bullied high school student Tommy is suddenly befriended by his chief tormentor, Matt, the school's most popular student and star athlete. Tommy is suspicious, but is forced to accept the awkward friendship in order to enter a cooking contest with a big prize. And besides, it's so much easier to impress his crush, Sarah, when he's not getting beat up by Matt and his team. As the cooking contest heats up, Sarah sniffs out a conspiracy, but nobody wants to hear about it. Can Tommy trust his budding friendship with Matt or is it all a huge joke on him?

Reviews
Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.
SunnyHello Nice effects though.
Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.
Prismark10 I believe this was shown on Cartoon Network in the USA and its aimed at the tweenage audience that the Disney channels do well aiming at.Tommy seems to be a perennial bullying victim at High School but his tormentor Matt under the threat of suspension befriends him and joins him to enter a cooking contest where Tommy could earn enough money to save his grandmother's pizza shop.Matt's brother Kyle is cooking a deal where the pizza shop is part of a redevelopment plan and gets his brother, Matt to sabotage the competition. However it seems Matt and Tommy might have bonded but Tommy's friend Sarah is suspicious.The is a lot of double dealing going on in the plot and some of the characters are flawed so its not all black and white but my word this film is giving mixed messages.The High School needs to be closed down given how much bullying goes on there, it needed to build its own hospital wing to treat its victims.At the end of the film one of the characters who has cynically sabotaged, hurt people, manipulated people seemed to have faced no consequences of his actions. A strange outcome for film with an anti bullying message.Some of the acting is fine, some of its broad. Its a low budget film but the script lacks polish and it would had been more focused if he Disney channel had made it.
bkoganbing You'll find a number of familiar faces from the small screen in the film Contest which was made as part of an anti-bullying initiative. It's a decent effort, but sad to say the main reason, the main taunt that bullies use was never in the film. That is that pejorative beginning with the letter "F" referring to sexual orientation. That in itself makes this an inferior product.In this film young Danny Flaherty is the target of the jocks in his high school specifically the swim team who love to toss him in the pool as he can't swim. The leader of the bullying and the swim team is Kenton Duty.However one day Duty is caught in the act and is given a choice, expulsion and curtailment of his athletic activities or befriend Flaherty and head an anti-bullying initiative. Duty calls and Duty chooses.But Kenton is raised by older brother Kyle Dean Massey who has his own reasons for wanting this to fail. Flaherty's grandmother who raises him owns a pizzeria that someone wants her out of. It's where Flaherty has learned to cook and he's entered a cooking contest where the winner receives $50,000.00 and TV show entitled TV chef. Flaherty has a team of four for the contest and Duty is part of his team.It goes without saying that when the two are thrown together even though Kenton is initially thinking of sabotaging Flaherty's efforts, eventually he and Flaherty bond in a unique way.What can you say about a film that totally ignores the chief reason for bullying in school, real or perceived gayness. Maybe had Flaherty been made a gay character this film might have had some bite to it. But I suspect the producers didn't want to hear from religious right.Contest, a sincere but very weak film.
disgaea36 This movie was horrible. The people giving this 10 stars either saw a different movie or are Disney channel fanatics because this was just bad from start to finish. There was barely much plot except for the protagonist trying to save his grandmothers shop and the acting and camera work were just downright bad. This was nothing but over dramatized bullying to the extreme and overzealous teens lashing out. I give it 2 stars because I found the shy kid with the accent charming and the blogger crush witty and cute for the small scenes they both got but thats about it. This is a movie you wait for release on DVD and never rent. Save your cash and especially your time and go watch something else you got an abundance of choices.
shortrest Good family movie about bullying in high school. The cast of young folk all were great! It plays like an after school special, which in my mind is a good thing. I still remember the ones I was shown as a kid in the 70's and 80's. One thing that stood out to me was the lack of a mean girl focus. These kinds of story lines seem to leave the boy friendships in the background and focus on the girls. Most impressed with the soundtrack. Katherine McNamara, Kenton Duty, And Daniel Flaherty all have amazing songs! Daniel sounds like a young Bob Dylan and Katherine's voice is beautiful and I understand she co-wrote the song.