This movie trailer, for the indie film To Save a Life, landed in my in-box the other day. Outside of its obvious movie-of-the-week cheese factor (from the looks of it, it's being heavily marketed towards Christian audiences), I'm shaking my head at some of the really troubling racial implications to the story.

In short: Jake, the popular blond, blue-eyed high school teen questions his privilege and status when his childhood friend, Roger -- now a high school outcast -- "walks onto campus with a gun in his pocket and pain in his heart and makes a tragic move." Popular white kid finds himself "looking for the next Roger and reaching out to the outcasts and lonely." This, of course, could cost him his own friends, his girl, and his reputation.

And who is the sad and lonely loner outcast kid Jake reaches out to? The Asian kid, of course. Jonny, the Asian kid -- the most likely suspect to become a school shooter, I suppose. You know he's a loser/loner because he likes to wear his hood. "When Jonny is accused of making a bomb threat to the school, it's Jake who has to decide if his friendship with Jonny is worth the risk of sticking up for him."

I'm sure there are some audiences out there that will gobble up this movie as a moving tale of high school tolerance. And I'm sure the people behind this movie had the best of intentions. That said, I wonder how many teens will emerge from the theater clinging to an extremely misguided moral: hey white kids, be nice to the people of color at your school, because you never know -- they might just be the next school shooter. (Thanks, Oliver.)