Review: 21 & Over

Films about drunken romps and over-the-top debauchery have long been a staple of the silver screen.  With the success of movies like The Hangover, Project X, and other alcohol infused narratives, we’ve seen the audacity and raunchiness of each successive film ramped up.  While 21 & Over is by no means the dirtiest flick of ‘em all, it certainly tries to make a run at that title.  And while it’s easy to quickly dismiss this movie as a juvenile hormonally driven example of societal decay, upon closer inspection it seems 21 & Over may not be a complete cinematic write off.

The plot focuses on Miller (Miles Teller) and Casey (Skylar Astin), two friends from high school who show up unannounced to celebrate the 21^st birthday of their other former best friend Jeff Chang (Justin Chon).  The three of them go out for an epic night on the college town even though Jeff Chang has a highly important interview scheduled for the next morning.  Drunken chicanery, fisticuffs, and physical trauma force the three to evaluate their friendships and realize that all may not be right in their respective worlds.

As I think of this film, there are three levels upon which to judge it: the plot, the raunchy physical comedy, and the chemistry.  Each worked (and didn’t work) to varying degrees:

The Plot. Both Jon Lucas and Scott Moore serve as writer/director and their ties to The Hangover Franchise and The Change-Up should immediately serve notice that 21 & Over is not going to be a film of Shakespearian proportions.  Still, (and this may be a function of low expectations), there is surprisingly more going on here than the typical college idiocy.  There’s a bit more meat on the bones to these friendships and to their personal journeys than you would expect.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say the plot was well done but I will say it was a pleasant surprise.

The Raunchy Physical Comedy.  There are a few good sight gags peppered between the necessary bumps and bruises required to advance the plot.  There are also a few cringe inducing visuals that make you question exactly why you are watching this film.  However, where this film loses its comedic way is its attempt to outdo its fellow salacious films.  It seems that every time there is a lull in the plot, lewd visuals are inserted to augment the narrative – a definitive sign of the lack of experience on the part of the first time directors.  There seems to be enough verbal and garden-variety physical comedy to drive the film, but the creative team opts to introduce elements that could possibly turn viewers off.  These decisions greatly hinder the film.

The Chemistry.  No one is ever going to nominate Miles Teller, Justin Chon, and Skylar Astin for Academy Awards.  But the three of them have a good chemistry that is most apparent in the scenes when the actors are clearly given the liberty to ad lib.  Those scenes stand in stark contrast to the rest of the film and tend to be the ones that provide the laugh-out-loud moments.  Far and above all else, their exchanges of ridiculous banter serve as the redemptive quality for what is mostly a vacuous film.

Does any of this mean you should see this movie?  I think it boils down to this.  If you have a loose sense of humor and ninety minutes to kill, you could do worse than to give this a look on DVD or on a premium cable network.  However, if you’re a bit more serious or consider yourself something of a sophisticate, then you’ll want to take a pass on this one.  It’ll make you want to throw the remote at the screen.  I didn’t hate this movie as it made me laugh a bit more than some of its peers, but then I didn’t go out of my way to watch it.  That, plus low expectations made for optimal viewing conditions.  Be wary.

Standout Performance: Miles Teller.  He drops some of the best lines in the movie and provided most of the laughs.  Honorable mention to Francois Chau for providing a few laughs as Jeff Chang's father.

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Review: Project X

As I sit at the keyboard, I have officially published thirty-nine movie reviews on this blog.  When I finish this write up about producer Todd Phillips’ Project X, that number will remain at thirty-nine, because what I watched today can only in the loosest sense be referred to as something that vaguely resembles a film.  Full disclaimer – I am not in the target demographic for Project X.  This much is obvious.  The question I want to ask is, what are the target psychographics they considered when they hatched this idea?  Because although it’s been a while since I rocked a J. Crew anorak around Andover, I find it hard to believe that the seventeen year-old version of me would have found this entertaining.

Here is a quick synopsis of what exactly transpires onscreen.  Three unpopular guys want to be popular so they throw a “game-changing” party in North Pasadena that rages out of control.  Texts, drinking, drugs, sex, and anarchy ensue until a man with a flame-thrower shows up to retrieve a garden gnome. Lucky for us (insert dripping sarcasm), they decide to record everything that happens.  Voila!  A found footage film is born.

This continues a disturbing trend in Hollywood where studios distribute these faux found footage films because they are cheap to make and/or cheap to acquire.  The increased popularity of this genre is not unlike what we witnessed ten years ago on TV when Survivor opened the floodgates that led to a glut of ridiculous reality television shows (i.e. Temptation Island, Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire).  Networks kept pumping these out (and still do) because they could be produced at a fraction of the cost of a scripted series.  But in the end, you always get what you pay for - a lesson that obviously has not been learned.

So what we get in Project X is a “movie” with no plot.  The mere act of writing a synopsis (as I did two paragraphs ago) is giving it far too much credit as a narrative.  The film is nothing more than a collection of visuals cut and edited in way to celebrate the brand of misguided teen angst that exists in today’s society.  But no slick soundtrack or grotesque sensationalism can mask the simple fact that Project X is ninety minutes of visual and audio noise.  As for the cast, the most I can say is that there is one – comprised of a bunch of D, E, and F-level faces that are vaguely familiar, but none of which should receive acting credits for appearing in the project.

I don’t think I need to spell out at this point whether or not I am going to recommend Project X.  I think I let the cat out of the bag pretty clearly in the preceding paragraphs.  I’ll just close this out with a riddle.  What do you call it when a lot of things happen, but when you add them all up, they amount to nothing?  I call that Project-X.  (ba-DUM-Tsssh!)

Standout Performance: The Garden Gnome.
Interesting Attached Trailer: Neighborhood Watch – Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, and Jonah Hill join forces in this film that promises to be either comedic genius or epically bad.

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Review: Footloose (2011)

There are some movies that should never be re-made; Godfather, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark – movies that through a confluence of great casting, directing, and cinematography have produced truly iconic cinematic experiences.  Then there are those that should never be given a second look for an entirely different set of reasons – Date Movie, Hudson Hawk, and anything by Adam Sandler post Spanglish.

Then there’s Footloose, a movie that was an immediate classic in its time, but because of its dated music and dance has not really aged well.  Worse still is that its premise – breaking a small town ban on dancing – does not translate well to the present day.  And yet somehow, an updated version of this movie made its way into cinemas in 2011 and - even worse - found its way onto my red-eye flight from Los Angeles to New York City.

The movie plays like Step Up meets Friday Night Lights as over wrought dancing collides with teen angst in the fictional small town of Bomont, Georgia.  A forray into the deep south was inevitable as Footloose’s predecessors in the teen dance genre (Save the Last Dance, Take the Lead, etc.) had exhausted the urban backdrop.  So what else is wrong with the film besides the antiquated notion of a ban on public dancing, the hammed up southern drawls, and the uncompelling melodrama and rebellion found at every turn?  The fact that none of it comes together to form an interesting narrative from start to finish.

Kenny Womald would have been merely pedestrian in the lead role as Ren MacCormack, but his weak Boston accent tips the scales towards bad. Julianne Hough is at her best when she is dancing, but lacks any kind of charisma as an actual actress, making one wonder if it was a wise career choice to leave Dancing with the Stars. Dennis Quaid’s Reverend Shaw Moore is cantankerous enough and Andie MacDowell does little to distinguish herself as Moore’s wife.  The requisite gaggle of friends played by Miles Teller, Ser’Darius Blain, and Ziah Colon add a bit of life to the proceedings, but do not get enough to work with to really make a difference.

When I first saw this trailer, I thought that Footloose was a movie to be avoided like the plague.  A bout of insomnia on a cross-country flight has helped to reassure me that my first inclination was right.  If it is a mix of dance and drama that you crave, watch the original, wax poetic about an era long since passed, and then play a rousing game of 6-Degrees-of-Kevin Bacon. 

Standout Performance:  Miles Teller’s Willard injects a bit of comic relief to the otherwise melodramatic proceedings.

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