Where were all the parents?

Interesting idea, good execution. One of my favorite scenes was the one where the mother of The Pin (the main gangster) was getting the boys some breakfast. That was probably the only scene where any of the parents or grown ups was shown (in addition to the school principal). The parents of the main character were never shown. That was intentional, of course, as the movie wanted to portray the high schools kids as characters in a film noir (you don't see any mommas and poppas in film noirs). But that's why the scene with the mother seemed so cool - the mother was so out of place given that her son was supposed to be some great criminal, but on the other hand, her son was also a teenager, which made mother's presence completely suitable. I wish the movie had included more of the grown up people, that would have created a nice contrast between the genres of film noir and teen movie. As it stood, the movie was completely devoted to the detective story, which got kind of boring because the story itself was a rather standard story. Playing more with the contrast between hardboiled teenagers and normal grown ups, would have sparked the movie up a notch. Or maybe it would have turned it into a comedy. Anyway, it was great.