MOVIE REVIEW Here's one 'Catch' that ends up being a little too implausible

Kids robbing a bank and getting away with it? Right.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Last weekend, six high school seniors broke into the Princeton Testing Center and stole the answers to the SAT in "The Perfect Score." This weekend, the family comedy "Catch That Kid" serves up three eighth-graders who successfully pull off a bank heist. I'm not sure what Hollywood executives are trying to tell us about America's future leaders, but it sure isn't pretty.
With "Kid," former Sundance Film Festival Golden Boy Brad Freundlich abandons edgy indie dramas ("The Myth of Fingerprints," "World Traveler") for bubblegum fare with decidedly ho-hum results. Freundlich's dishwater-dull riff on the "Spy Kids" flicks, alas, never gets out of first gear.
Minus the wit and comic inventiveness that made Robert Rodriguez's pint-sized 007 adventures so much fun, it's doubtful whether many moviegoers will bother catching this "Kid," at first-run prices anyway. (Youngsters interested in pursuing a career in grand larceny might want to check it out for helpful tips, though.)
Kristen Stewart (best remembered as Jodie Foster's daughter in "Panic Room") plays Maddy, the bank job's criminal mastermind. At least Maddy's intentions are slightly more honorable than the punks in "Perfect Score."
Why she needs money
After her beloved dad (Sam Robards) is told that he needs an experimental operation costing $250,000, industrious Maddy simply does what all kids who love their parents would do in a similar situation. (No, not pray.) Helping make things more, uh, convenient is the fact that mom (Jennifer Beals, a long way from "Flashdance") is the bank's security consultant.
Maddy -- wouldn't you know she's a rock climbing expert, too? -- soon enlists mechanical whiz Gus (Max Thieriot) and computer genius Austin (Corbin Bleu) in this "mission-without-permission." Both boys have a crush on her, so Maddy plays them against each other (another great lesson for young girls: Sex sells) to get what she wants. With skills like that, Maddy would make a fierce competitor on "The Apprentice."
Because Maddy's mom is only too happy to provide an alibi -- she tells the police that the robbery was all part of an elaborate security test -- nobody gets carted off to juvenile hall. And Maddy obtains the needed cash for pop's operation after all, even if she has to -- drat! -- return the bank's loot. What a wonderful message for today's kids: You can get away with anything if you try hard enough.
Just don't buy it
The movie's implausibility wouldn't have mattered if Freundlich had actually made an exciting or funny caper movie. As a result, we never make the leap of faith required to buy the far-fetched, morally hazy premise. Not even the kids themselves are particularly engaging.
A remake of a popular Danish children's film, "Catch That Kid" proves that not all foreign-language hits are easily transferable to the U.S. I have to believe that the original must have played better overseas -- or perhaps Danes think middle school pupils who rob banks are just really, really cute.
XWrite Milan Paurich at milanpaurich@aol.com.