Assassination of a High School President is yet another Hollywood tragedy that had all the promise in the world, but, through bad turns of offscreen circumstance, never got the shot in theaters it deserved.

The film was a hit at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and people were calling it the next Brick – pretty much because both films are homages to the Film Noir era, set against the backdrop of modern high school. After the Yari Group, the owners of the film, went bankrupt, the film’s fate was left to question. Assassination of a High School President has finally been released direct-to-DVD this week and we’ve got the review for you.

One of the highlights of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival was Assassination of a High School President, a dark-comedy Noir set in a high school. The film earned praise for being a sort of Brick-meets-Election mashup, featuring a strong comedic performance by Bruce Willis as the school’s militaristic principal.

Screen Rant recently gave you a (belated) first look at Assassination of a High School President, while we kept eager fingers crossed that the film – whose owners, the Yari Group, filed for bankruptcy soon after it wrapped – would be able to clear all legal red tape in favor of a proper release.

Well, Assassination of a High School President has snagged a release date but I wouldn’t call it proper: the film is going straight to DVD this fall.

I first heard of Assassination of a High School President during the 2008 Sundance Film Festival where the movie – a political/Noir mystery set in a high school – managed to make something of an impression. Fans of the film were calling it the next Brick (and if you don’t know what Brick is, you should), only two-times as funny. And that was endorsement enough for me.

Well, after Sundance, I waited for the seemingly inevitable theatrical release of Assassination of a High School President to happen, but nothing ever came of it and the film slowly faded from my overcrowded memory until recently, when a trailer for the film and news of its release finally arrived.