'LIKE AN ADOLESCENT Heart of Darkness" posits the promotional jabber for indie drama Mean Creek; thank god the movie wouldn't dream of being so pretentious. In writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes's first feature, Sam (Rory Culkin) is the object of school-yard bullying by George (Joshua Peck), a kid so exasperating and mean that soon you too will find yourself thinking of him as "that fat fuck." And junior high schooler Sam isn't the only one who's found himself on the pounding end of big, bulky, rather thickheaded George's overactive temper. Deciding that f.f. has become a general problem in need of a solution, Sam's older brother, Rocky (Trevor Morgan), proposes a little disciplinary humiliation. The siblings invite George on a fake-birthday daytrip down the river, along with Sam's kinda-almost girlfriend, Millie (Carly Schroeder), and two friends of Rocky's with their own bullying issues: angry Marty (Scott Mechlowicz), who lives with a brutish elder brother, and sensitive Clyde (Ryan Kelley), who's forever called "fag" because his parents are gay men. Shot in Oregon, Mean Creek is a fine little seriocomic examination of typical adolescent personality types, peer relations, problems, and communication – something that plays a lot more interesting than it sounds. Too bad that right after building to a riveting peak in real-world tensions, the movie has to get all River's Edge and spend its last half hour on credulity-stretching melodrama. Still, what's good here is very good. The cast of semi-unknowns is mostly excellent, but memo to casting directors: enough with the Culkins, please. They all look the same, act the same, and are distracting ("Doesn't that kid look like, you know, the one from Home Alone?") in just the same way. (Dennis Harvey)