Johnson cites Miller’s Crossing as a big influence when he was in film school. He read an interview with the Coens where they mentioned Dashiell Hammett as an influence on their film and this got Johnson to read all of the man’s books. It was at that point that he got the idea to set a film noir in a high school setting to give this classic genre what he calls, “a different set of visual cues.” Johnson talks about how he started off with no connections in the film industry and that it took six to seven years of shopping around his “weird, little script” to various production companies before he finally got the chance to make his movie. Instead of having everyone talk over each other, Johnson interviews each person about their experiences making the movie. This is solid commentary track filled with lots of good observations and fascinating information on how this movie was made.

There are many moments of good information given here, but it is still a bad commentary. He has a revolving door of guests join in and talk about their part of it, including the costumer, the producer, two actors, and the director of photographer. While informative, what this does is feel more like what should have been an interview documentary, as they seldom talk about what is happening on the screen at the time.