Over the years, a great many rock stars, from Prince to John Mellencamp, have tried their hands at directing films, and the results have been mixed at best. So when I heard that Fred Durst, the punk-vagabond frontman of Limp Bizkit, had gotten behind the camera to direct a movie, I was skeptical.

But Durst's movie, "The Education of Charlie Banks," is nothing to scoff at. It's the first movie Durst has directed, but the second one to be released, and it proves once again that he's got theatrical chops.

Charlie, played by Jesse Eisenberg, is a tweedy, cautious East Coast college kid who winds up playing campus host to Mick, the boyish sociopath played by Jason Ritter.

Charlie secretly ratted Mick out to the police when they were kids, but he's now trying to keep a lid on that secret. But Charlie's also trying to figure out if he likes Mick or not. He knows the guy is trouble, yet he can't help being fascinated by his reckless confidence.

If "The Education of Charlie Banks" has a Durstian element, it's the note of sympathy that Durst tries to strike for Mick the rebel invader, even as the young dude is beating people to a pulp. The sympathy doesn't quite take, which kind of throws the movie off.

Ritter, who's like a young Ethan Hawke on a bender of violence, is an actor to watch, and Fred Durst shows enough talent to make me hope that he keeps exploring his antisocial impulses on film.