crazy/beautiful tries awfully hard not to be formulaic but fails miserably in the process.  It's not like we haven't seen this story before – the whole girl-falling-for-the-boy-she-isn't-supposed-to-love thing can be traced at least as far back as Romeo and Juliet and as recently as Save the Last Dance.  crazy is so similar to Dance – the story of a painfully white blonde girl and dark-skinned boy from a poor neighborhood – that one critic has already dubbed the film Save the Last Burrito, because, in this picture, the boy is played by a Latino actor.

crazy's opening credits show us a collage of arty photographs (like Dance, this cracker also has a creative outlet – photography) before we meet our two romantic leads.  Carlos Nuñez (Jay Hernandez, MTV's Undressed) spots a fair-haired cutie picking up trash as part of a community service sentence for robbing a convenience store.  She is Nicole Oakley (Kirsten Dunst, Get Over It), a classmate of Carlos' at the predominantly white Pacific High.  She lives in giant glass house overlooking the ocean; he lives in the barrio and has to take a two-hour bus trip (uphill both ways) just to attend Pacific.

But wait, there's more.  Nicole's neglectful father is a U.S. Congressman (Bruce Davison, X-Men) and she's a real problem child.  Daddy can't seem to get his bleary-eyed, belly-baring beauty to stop drinking, drugging, banging loads of different guys, or mouthing off to her young stepmother (Lucinda Jenney, Thirteen Days).  Meanwhile, Carlos is a football star with an Oscar de la Hoya smile who plans on becoming a Navy pilot (even though he's never stepped foot on a plane) and has a closet-sized bedroom (complete with bare light bulb) as well as a very supportive family.  Get it?  It's a twist on the typical good-girl-dating-the-boy-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks story.

But wait, there's still more!  When Nicole and her dog-faced girlfriend (Taryn Manning) drive Carlos back to the barrio for the first time, they aren't all, like, "Oh my God – these street signs are all in Spanish!"  Instead, the girls hop out of the car and give a lap dance to each patron of a taco cart.  When Nicole's dad gives Carlos the "Stay away from my daughter" speech, he's not doing it because he's a racist – he's doing it because he thinks his daughter is going to screw up this boy's obviously bright future.

You know, if you really want to break the stereotypes found in these types of films, do something drastic.  Make the guy the popular black quarterback and the girl the slutty, pregnant daughter of a drunken crack whore.  Afflict one of them with AIDS.  Make one a serial killer.  Or at least have a couple of the over-30 Latino females clock in under 300 pounds.  Even though some of the specifics have changed, crazy is still the same-old same-old.  If it's a hit, like Dance, you should expect to see a film where a lily-white poet played by Kate Hudson falls for an Asian gangster played by Rick Yune.

As bad as Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi's script is (they're both feature-film rookies), crazy is made somewhat palatable by director John Stockwell, who wrote and helmed the enjoyable HBO film Cheaters.  crazy is filled with interesting shot composition and editing, often using nice montages to get its tiresome point across.  The film also has a bunch of TRL-ready songs, some of which are embarrassingly effective.  But it's all easily forgotten by the laughable ending.

Hernandez does well in what should be a breakout role.  Dunst is a great actress, and she gets a couple of scenes to show off her chops here, but if you compare any of her weepy drug-addled rants to Traffic's Erika Christensen, they just don't measure up.

1:35 –

for mature thematic material involving teens, drug/alcohol content, sexuality & language