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This Film On

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Old School

(2003)

91 min. DreamWorks. Director: Todd Phillips. Cast: Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Jeremy Piven, Ellen Pompeo.

Old School is the sort of bad movie which constantly threatens to turn into something good, mostly on the strength of a few talented actors. Here, those actors are Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, and Vince Vaughn, serving under the tutelage of Todd "Road Trip" Phillips. The resulting zany comedy plays like Fight Club meets Animal House (heavy on the Animal House, partly because that film's director, Ivan Reitman, executive produced Old School).

Wilson plays Mitch Martin, a nice guy stooge who can't quite get it together. After a train wreck of a breakup from his oversexed girlfriend (Juliette Lewis), Mitch finds himself vulnerable to the opportunistic wiles of his buddy Beanie (Vince Vaughn), the schmoozily successful proprietor of electronics retailer Speaker City. Beanie decides that what he, Mitch, and their pitiable newlywed friend Frank (Ferrell) need is to hang on to their youth by starting a fraternity.

The details of this plot machination are best left to the experts. But suffice it to say that this unlikely scenario leads to many hijinks: the friends humiliate an old enemy, now the dean (Jeremy Piven), arrange ragers and KY-jelly wrestling matches, and must climactically save the frat by passing a series of elaborate mental and physical tests.

I liked Old School less and less as it wore on, character comedy souring into cheap shots like Ferrell injecting himself with the tranq gun of Seann William Scott (that's right, three minutes with Stifler from American Pie!). One particularly tasteless sequence finds Andy Dick as an Emo Phillips-coiffed blow-job instructor, exemplifying the hit-and-miss nature of the "outrageous" humor. After losing most of its steam, the film regains some clever cred in the climactic testing clinch (here, Ferrell earns his paycheck by schooling James Carville in a debate competition and utterly failing--while dressed in a tiger suit--to clear a ring of fire).

The film's best asset, though, is Vaughn, effortlessly etching his trademark motormouth--a charmer with a stilletto--onto the surface of the film. In one of the film's simplest--and best--bits, Vaughn blurts "Earmuffs" to his young son--a signal for the boy to cover his ears so Daddy can swear. When Vaughn disingenuously wraps up a toast by saying, "I'm not a talker, I'm not a talker," you know you've heard something laughable.