Bruce Willis is at a pretty interesting career point right now. Aside from money-in-the-bank Die Hard films, he’s way past his salad days as a box office draw supreme, and yet every time he threatens to descend full-on into hackdom, he pulls out a Hostage or Sin City to let you know he still cares…somewhat. His latest project is so conceptually wacky, you get the feeling that it’s definitely not one of his uninspired paycheck jobs. Assassination of a High School President is described as “a comedic homage to Chinatown set in a high school,” which I guess answers the many critics who felt that the problem with Rian Johnson’s high school noir Brick was that it just wasn’t gutbusting enough. Willis is taking a supporting role as the principal, who happens to be a Desert Storm veteran prone to randy anecdotes about the joy of his role in holding off Saddam.

If this sounds too off-kilter for a major studio to do justice to, well, it is. The project is being shepherded by the Yari Film Group, who’ve been making strides in the theatrical distribution biz lately with small, quirky, yet still-star-driven flicks like The Illusionist, First Snow, and The Hoax. That does nothing to explain why they’re putting out that new wretched-looking Jamie Kennedy breakdancing “comedy,” being that it has no stars and is about as lame and mainstream a plot as you can imagine, but I suppose his ready supply of compromising photos of film execs and/or the deal with he struck with Satan oh so long ago is the gift that keeps on giving for Kennedy. There’s no other rational way to explain his continued presence on film.