Rating- * * * (3/5)
Before you get downhearted, the three-star rating that I have given Old School, the latest comedy from Road Trip director Todd Phillips, is in no way to be taken as a bad review. Make no mistake, this is a stupid, gross, and mindless romp with a completely over-used plot and very little to speak of in terms of filmmaking style. All that said, it is funny as hell. Phillips has somehow saved this otherwise worthless comedy from the same fate as so many other gross-out, Farrelly Brothers rip-offs and he did with essentially two tricks: great casting and some original physical gags. First, let’s talk about the cast. In the lead role, Luke Wilson plays a mild-mannered nice guy who comes home one day to find his girlfriend (Juliet Lewis) engaged in some very R-rated activities. He decides to move out and start over and he buys a house that just so happens to be on the campus of his old alma mater. Seeing such a great opportunity to have fun and get laid and being the sleazy, scheming guy that he his, his best friend (played by Vince Vaughn) decides to organize a massive party in Wilson’s honor. They invite their newlywed best friend Frank (Will Ferrell), or as he was know in college “Frank the tank,” and about a thousand other college coeds show up. Since they all enjoy the party so much, the guys decide that the solution to all their problems will be to relive their college lives and they attempt to do so by starting a sort of “outcast” fraternity, open to all the guys who wouldn’t normally make it into fraternities, including a 90-year-old man named Blue and a morbidly obese black kid, both of whom are used in several of the movie’s more obvious jokes. The movie does dabble in some of the run-of-the-mill guy movie stuff like Wilson accidentally sleeping with a high school girl (played by 24’s gorgeous Elisha Cuthbert), or the fat kid jumping on a trampoline and flying to physically impossible heights. However, where this movie excels is in the genuinely original comedy that it brings, the vast majority of it coming from the endlessly energetic and funny Ferrell. I won’t ruin any of it for you, but the movie does involve two guaranteed belly-laughs, one when Ferrell decides to streak through downtown and another when he sings the Kansas rock-ballad “Dust in the Wind” at a funeral. There are quite a few great gags in this movie and what makes them great is that you will remember that they are from Old School. So many of these low-brow comedies recycle the same gags over and over and its refreshing to see a movie that’s not afraid to show the audience some jokes that haven’t been tried before. I was also very satisfied by Will Ferrell’s performance and I hope with all my heart that he starts putting out a movie per year. The bottom line is, although Old School is not a well-made or well-written film, it is still the hardest I have laughed since Will Ferrell left Saturday Night Live. My advice would be this: don’t get your hopes up that this will be a drop-dead hilarious movie because it does have its failings, but overall this is definitely worth seeing and I can give it a hesitant but positive thumbs up.