Be Reel: American Vandal

American Vandal; a Crime Not to Watch

The Netflix original, American Vandal, created by Dan Perrault and Tony Yacenda perfectly captures what it's like to be back inside of a high school as Peter (Tyler Alvarez) and Sam (Griffin Gluck) encase on making a hit documentary about a $100,000 prank whose perpetrator, Dylan (Jimmy Tatro) insists on his innocence. Many of the cast members in the series can be recognized as previous disney stars such as, G. Hannelius and Calum Worthy. The series takes place behind the cameras of Peter and Sam as they conduct interviews with students involved with the crime of spray-painting penises onto teachers' cars. These two students make it their mission to find the truth of who painted the profanity while also capturing in all of the highschool drama of who hooked up with who, who attended the parties and what everyone has to say on each other.
Perrault and Yacenda masterfully capture the essence of what it's like to be in highschool while also seamlessly adding raunchy humor to the series that is just so dumb it's actually funny. The series brings to life the different personalities and people anyone who went to a public high school is familiar with. By bringing Peter and Sam around the small town and mapping out every detail of everyone remotely attached to the crime, the audience can feel just how juvenile the entire documentary is but also be intrigued by the links between the students. The series focuses on how student's reputations in highschool can unfairly lead to blame or trust. This is strongly showed through Jimmy Tatro's character Dylan. Tatro does the perfect job of creating the typical immature high school prankster. With this reputation the entire administration assumes the prank was Dylan's doing despite lack of any solid proof. This is shown throughout the entire series through characters like Alex Trimboli, Christa Carlyle, and Mackenzie Wagner.
While the entire series revolves around a juvenile topic, the messages underlying hold true and really speak lengths about what highschool life is like. The series is a must watch if you're into 1 season raunchy tv shows that are very bingable.