OLD SCHOOL
# stars based on 4 stars: 3 Reviewed by: Harvey Karten DreamWorks Pictures Directed by: Todd Phillips Written by: Todd Phillips, Scot Armstrong, story by Court Crandall and Phillips & Armstrong Cast: Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Ellen Pompeo, Juliette Lewis, Leah Remini, Craig Kilborn, Jeremy Piven Screened at:
Tell a high-school kid whose favorite subject is lunch and is bored out of his mind with schoolwork that his college years will be the best of his life, and you'll face the contempt that the young enjoy having for their elders. Give him time. When he's 30 years old with a baby in his arms and another little guy who fights endlessly with the little whiner, he'll long for dear old alma mater. Or so says Todd Phillips using a story by by Court Crandall to illustrate the wisdom that only the middle-aged possess, as he proves that you can go home again and what's more age need not prevent you from enjoying the coeds, even the high-school seniors, as you wished you did before.
"Old School" is more a series of Saturday Night Live sketches than a (so to speak) fleshed out movie but is blessed with some gifted comic actors, particularly with Vince Vaughn playing well against his "Psycho" type with Will Ferrell as the fall guy and Luke Wilson as straight man. The tale hinges on the purchase of a home by yuppie lawyer Mitch Martin (Luke Wilson) in the heart of a college campus. His alliance with the married and zany Beanie (Vince Vaughn) leads Mitch to relive the college days he wishes he had, as Mitch, together with his pal Frank (Will Ferrell), throw a housewarming party complete with rappers and a bevy of gorgeous women and their fun-loving fellows. Beanie thinks "who needs college? I run a successful chain of electronics stores and I can barely read." Bad news arrives as the dean picked on by the 30-somethings when they all attended the university as students-- decides to evict the tenants under a regulation that states that those who dwell in the place must be students. The fellas seek to get around the rule as they shanghai a motley bunch of people including one 89-year-old, making them pledge their "fraternity."
Despite the obligatory vulgarity, including the presence of an inebriated Frank's streaking in his birthday suit down the campus road and a lesson for women on pleasing their men, "Old School" could make the older segment of its audience nostalgic for their own school daze and is yet another picture that arouses the envy of the folks in the audience who attended school during the dull Far-from-Heaven fifties when virginity was in no way considered a nerdy.
Rated R. 90 minutes. Copyright 2003 by Harvey Karten at Harveycritic@cs.com
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