Calling your main character “Gonzo” doesn’t make him interesting in the edgeless high school comedy “Beware the Gonzo.”
An exceptionally smug and annoying young actor named Ezra Miller plays the title character, a prep school journalist who, after a tiff with his paper’s editor, goes rogue and starts an “underground” newspaper. He is on a mission to uncover dark truths about his school, though none of the stories sound like anything you’d want to read, let alone hear discussed in meetings.
Supposedly nutty escapades in newspapering — such as an undercover investigation into the sources of the school lunch meat — and a tepid love story are equally dull. Despite the presence of such professional actors as Campbell Scott (as Gonzo’s father), “Beware the Gonzo” is a thoroughly amateurish effort at capturing clued-in and smartass teens.