Old School
Review by Paul Preston
Welcome to Today I Watched…, a series of posts documenting my new challenge – watch a movie a day for the rest of my life. Keep coming back to TheMovieGuys.net to find out what I watch each day…and get my take on it.
When I see a movie that’s a new release in theaters or for home viewing, I’ll give it a proper review in the “Reviews”, otherwise, I’ll write about it here.
March 28, 2017 – Old School
I’ve always felt in Movie Jail with this one. Everyone seems to have seen it but me, it’s a modern comedy classic and people reference “ear muffs” and I need to ask what that means. So, I finally checked out Old School.
What a huge disappointment.
This movie is devoid of any laughs and is a staggeringly poorly-made film from Todd Phillips, who went on to surer directorial efforts with the likes of The Hangover and War Dogs.
Let me tell you the plot now, because it takes thirty-two minutes for the film to reveal it (I clocked it). I honestly thought I was watching a comedy with a reel missing as Old School moved along with its characters and story for a good half hour as if I should know and care who they are. Frank, Mitch and…Beanie? (had to look that one up) are old friends who are at an adulthood breaking point. Mitch has just divorced, Frank has just married and Beanie is saddled with kids. After Mitch leaves his wife, he holes up in a house that is soon after deemed campus housing-only by the Harrison University dean, Gordon Pritchard, a guy exacting revenge on our trio of louses for picking on him back in the day. So rather than move out of a house he just moved into and has no attachment to, Mitch chooses the much more difficult task of starting a fraternity from scratch.
Pledges are quickly gathered (kidnapped) and devote allegiance to the frat at an alarming pace. Seriously, the new members care deeply about this frat right away, and much quicker than I do (I still don’t). There is nothing in it for the pledges, they’re not fully-drawn characters who have anything to gain being involved. They aren’t the outcasts, they don’t need friends, they aren’t getting some kind of revenge. They’re just there…moving the plot along, helping Mitch save the house he’s lived in for, like a day. It’s all odd.
And one quick thing to bring up how this is a poorly-made film. The script offers no hang time for content. Things are brought up and immediately dealt with, which leaves no mystery, no surprise and no enjoyable pacing. Let me ‘splain. Mitch meets a girl at Frank’s wedding. Later, he discovers she has a boyfriend visiting from out of town (played by non-actor Craig Kilborn). He seems shifty, then RIGHT AWAY, he’s CAUGHT by Mitch, making out with a caterer. So you don’t get any grey zone, no conflict, no ambiguity, it’s all laid out with black-and-white characters and straightforward, nuanceless plotting. These type of bring-up-a-plot-point-and-deal-with-it-right-away moments are all over the movie, killing everything that makes a story great, especially comedy, ‘cause they forgot that part when they were so busy trying to move the story along.
Everyone in this film acts crazy for crazy’s sake, with no reason for doing so other then “wouldn’t it be cool if…?”. No. No, it would not. It just makes the film a jumble of whatever-the-fuck with no direction, and no real goal or story for our heroes. It might’ve served the viewer better if Mitch, Frank and Beanie had ANY stake in what was happening to them outside of it getting them to the next pointless gag. Looking back at the comedy timeline from the past fifteen years, Old School seems to find itself at the crossroads, kicking off an era where weird shit happens in a movie solely for weird shit’s sake (like the Sandler catalog). Characters endure pain or shocking situations (in Old School, it’s Will Ferrell taking a tranquilizer dart in the neck) with no real point, outcome or consequence. Just…”wouldn’t it be cool, if…?” at the expense of making a better movie. What an awful person Ferrell’s character is would be addressed in an Apatow film, for the betterment of the project.
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Release Date: February 21, 2003
Run Time: 88 Minutes
Country: USA
Rated: R
Distributor: DreamWorks
