Great script, Poor dialogue, Still a respectable film

Fresh is saved by cogent plotting. This single element is so far above average, particularly for this genre, that it raises the entire film to the same qualification, but all of this is despite significant dialogue problems. The way it was written, delivered, and cut - all of these things were faulty in their own way. The words themselves sound like an outsider's take of "how kid's talk nowadays" after a few minutes of listening at a random NYC public school. The profanity is there, but it's not very natural at all and it's clearly spoken to the letter. The children are almost all young actors more accustomed to using better English - in the smaller parts it would have been best to cast kids who actually talk this way and let them improvise. All of it is finally assembled in a very stage-y fashion which also makes the other issues stand out more. Were just one of these things done correctly, this film would have found a much larger audience.