Review: 'The Tutor' is a nonsensical thriller with a twist ending that's ridiculously bad

It’s surprising that “The Tutor” didn’t end up in the less-traveled end of a Netflix queue — because if idiotic psychological thrillers like this one escape their natural habitat, what are streaming services good for?

When we meet Ethan Campbell (Garrett Hedlund), he’s a hard-working rent-a-tutor helping rich New York teen-agers get through their SATs. When he’s not working, he’s setting up house with his pregnant girlfriend, Annie (Victoria Justice), in an apartment no gig worker could afford in a million years. (New York City is portrayed by interiors in Birmingham, Alabama, and a lot of Big Apple stock footage.) 

When Ethan’s boss (Joseph Castillo-Midyett) calls with an irresistible offer — tutoring a super-rich teen in the suburbs at three times his regular rate — Ethan thinks about the impending costs of having a baby and says yes. Ethan is driven, by chauffeur, to a mansion, where he finds his new student, Jackson (played by “Stranger Things” co-star Noah Schlapp).

Ethan is duly impressed by Jackson’s ostentatious wealth, and creeped out by Jackson’s demeanor — which swings from boredom about his lessons to self-destructive anger about getting an answer wrong. When Ethan goes looking for Jackson and instead finds the teen’s laptop, with a folder full of surveillance photos of Ethan and Annie in the city, Ethan’s rating of Jackson goes from mildly creepy to full-on psychotic.

More plot elements pop up in Ryan King’s first produced screenplay, namely the mention of a woman who died under mysterious circumstances 10 years earlier. King’s script and Jordan Ross’s direction keeps spiraling toward the most ludicrous plot twist I’ve seen in a long time.

Here’s the thing about twist endings: For one to work, a viewer must be able to watch the movie a second time and see the signs that were missed on first viewing. It doesn’t matter how outlandish the premise of the twist. What matters is whether it can be made plausible. And there’s nothing in “The Tutor,” particularly in Ethan’s actions, that seem remotely believable if one pieces them together mentally after the big reveal.

Hobbling the film even more is that Ross, as a director, seems to create zero rapport among his three leads — so we’re never invested in anything they say or do. “The Tutor” shows that its filmmakers need to go back for some remedial film school classes.

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‘The Tutor’

★

Opens Friday, March 24, at some theaters. Rated R for language, some violence and sexual material. Running time: 92 minutes.