Old School: Movie Review, DVD Review (2003)

(Originally published 2003)

Directed by Todd Phillips, written by Phillips and Scot Armstrong, 91 minutes, rated R.

"Old School" comes from the folks who gave us "Road Trip," and, in turn, Tom Green in his first film role--the one in which he tickled a live mouse with his tongue before popping it in his mouth as if it were some sort of Dickensian hors d’oeuvre.

For most, that will be the end of this review as they'll immediately know whether "Old School" is for them. So, see you next week.

However, for those who are still on the fence about whether to see it, "Old School" is, in fact, old hat, the sort of film that's never as nostalgic as its title suggests--unless, of course, the nostalgia we're talking about harkens back to the days before the troglodytes.

As directed by Todd Phillips from the script he wrote with Scot Armstrong, the movie was apparently written under the influence of Ephedra—it’s thin and occasionally toxic, creating a sort of cinematic wasting that amounts to nothing on screen.

It stars Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn and "Saturday Night Live’s" Will Ferrell as a group of 30-something men trying to recapture their prime by starting the sort of fraternity that stages KY Jelly wrestling matches between 80-year-old men and young, nubile co-eds—you know, the type who enjoy performing in the nude.

Only two jokes got a rise out of the audience at my screening--the one in which Ferrell takes a tranquilizer dart to the throat, which is funny, and the one in which several young men gather on a rooftop, tie cement blocks to their unmentionables and hope for the best as those blocks are hurled into the air in an alarming show of faith.

Not surprisingly, castration is a theme that runs throughout "Old School," particularly since all of these men--Wilson's Mitch, Vaughn's Beanie and Ferrell's Frank--are feeling a bit neutered in their relationships. It’s the hard living they feel they must do to overcome their irrational fears about spending the rest of their lives "with one vagina,” as the film delicately puts it, that allegedly gives "Old School" its frat-boy kick.

As produced by Ivan Reitman--who, shall we say, borrows liberally from the superior "Animal House," which he also produced--"Old School" is a dim bulb with no energy to light it. It’s lazy and colorless, a dull, shapeless movie that proves the American dream is alive and well in Hollywood. Indeed, in that town, apparently anyone can succeed--even those with a bad script and no clue that the best comedies rely on timing, attention to character and wit.

Grade: D-

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