| OLD SCHOOL |
 2003 – USA
Director: Todd Phillipse - Reviewed by Vickie
Now. Old School takes its cue from the college comedies of the past and adds its own fresh twist—three thirtysomething pals, each dissatisfied with his life, revisit the drunken glory days of the past by starting a fraternity. There's the film's hero, Mitch (Luke Wilson), who's learned the hard way that his faithful girlfriend (Juliette Lewis) regularly engages in "extracurricular" bedroom activites. With him are buddy Beanie (Vince Vaughn), a successful electronics-store owner with a wife (Leah Remini) and child who feels a little trapped by his commitments, and Frank (Will Ferrell), who's unable to grow up and be a man... which quickly ruins his brand-new marriage. The trio of misfits decides to take advantage of their mutual malaise by opening the doors of Mitch's new house to any and all equally unusual lads—enrolled in college or not—who want to pursue a life of fraternal debauchery. The only problem is, the house in question is on university property and a persnickety school administrator (Jeremy Piven, struggling to overcome his high-octane persona to come off as nebbish) sets his sights on ruining the fun for everybody. From there on in, it's one pratfall, hijink, mishap, escapade, caper, misadventure, fiasco or groan-inducing groin injury after another as the boys try to overcome whatever adversity (physical, emotional, psychological) ails them en route to personal happiness. While that's all fine and good, the one-joke-after-another pattern also lends itself to a somewhat scattered movie. (Again, this interpretation could very well be due to distraction inflicted by my rather noisy theater-mates.) Moments of sheer wince-worthy antics are combined with curious little interludes of self-examination. This is especially problematic for Mitch, who finds himself enjoying the prospect of a new relationship with an old crush (Ellen Pompeo, who deserves better than this film!), and by Beanie, who begins to wonder if recapturing his youth is such a good idea, after all. It's one of those cases of a film trying to do so many different things (plot- and tone-wise) that it winds up doing them all half-well, but not doing any of them greatly. There were also a few offensive jokes that, I fear, sent the wrong message to younger audience members. The teens in the audience with me were already tossing around slurs like "faggot" before the movie started, and seeing the word (among others) used in a derogatory manner onscreen only reinforced to them that the term is acceptable. And I know the teens thought it was okay because such moments were met with laughter and cheers. Not the smartest, or funniest, idea on the part of the filmmakers, given the portion of society likely to see Old School. In terms of the cast, the guys are all charming enough and it's easy to care about what happens to each of them. Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell all present endearingly screwed-up characters who can't seem to find the right way to get their lives on track, and all three actors are deft comedians in their own right. But, in a film that seems to let its comedic talents shine, why the horrible, unforgivable underuse of the wonderful Leah Remini, who's worthy of more than a mere three or four lines of dialogue?! She's funny, dammit, and I wanted to see more of her. Overall, it's a fun enough movie that had the potential to be even better than it was. All it needed was some fine tuning, a little more screen time for the women in its cast, and a stricter rating... not for content, but just to eliminate the presence of a large number of my odious, underage fellow audience members. |
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I'd like to preface this entire review by setting the scene for those
of you reading what follows: I had to sit through Old School amidst a
throng of about 40 loud, obnoxious, inconsiderate and, apparently,
highly unsophisticated teenagers. Yes, I know, they're the target
audience for the film, they're teenagers so how sophisticated could I
have honestly expected them to be?, and I really should have known
better... but there I was. As such, my enjoyment of the film was
regularly hampered by some 15-year-old half-wit shouting at the screen
or to his/her buddies sitting across the theater, or just laughing
far-too-uproariously at something that wasn't really funny.
