College

’21 & Over’ – Crap from the Past and from the Writers of ‘The Hangover’

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

Honestly, I did not laugh once during “21 and Over.” Maybe I chuckled a bit at one or two scenes, but that really doesn’t qualify as a laugh. This film is essentially a rip-off of “The Hangover” with elements of “Superbad” thrown in for good measure. It aspires to be a classic comedy like those films and even “Animal House” and “Adventures in Babysitting” among others, but it does not come even close to their hilarity or greatness. Regardless of the strong comic energy put forth by the cast here, this film is a complete waste of time and is honestly, at times, quite offensive.

Lifelong friends Miller (Miles Teller) and Casey (Skylar Astin) are in town to pick up their friend Jeff Chang (Justin Chon) and take him out for the time of his life. Yes, the main reason for this is that his twenty-first birthday has arrived, and they are not about to let him celebrate it alone. But wouldn’t you know it, he has a very important medical school interview the following morning, and his dad, who is played by François Chau (yes, Shredder from the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movies), is deadly serious about his son living up to the family name. Regardless, Miller and Casey are determined to take him out to celebrate, and Jeff agrees to go out as long as he is restricted to only one drink.

But of course, this would not be a motion picture without disaster courting these characters. Realizing he can now go to all these college bars he was once denied entrance to, Jeff goes insane and drinks every single bit of alcohol he can get his hands on at all of them. Things come to a gross climax when he rides a mechanical bull similar to one at the Saddle Ranch Chop House off of Sunset Boulevard, and it is very unsurprising when he vomits all over the place. The filmmakers go out of their way to show this character vomiting in slow motion, but it proves to be far more disgusting than it is amusing. Heck, Linda Blair vomiting pea soup at Jason Miller in “The Exorcist” was far more amusing than this, and that was a horror movie!

From there, Miller and Casey have to get Jeff home and ready for his big interview, but they soon discover they do not remember his address. Never mind how they were there earlier in the day; these douchebags do not even have Jeff’s address on them! Great, wonderful. So, from there, these three go through a lot of crazy adventures as Miller and Casey try to get Jeff’s address from different people, and you know they are not going to get the answer they are looking for until it is almost too late to do so.

Everything in “21 and Over” feels so very recycled from all those comedies we loved watching growing up. When Miller and Casey end up breaking into a female Latino sorority, in the process of trying to get Jeff’s address, they get two girls to make out with each other just because they can. Then there is a character who mistakes a tampon for a candy bar, an obnoxious jock looking to beat up anybody just because he can, and we of course get an obligatory scene of Miller and Casey being forced to make out with one another. That particular scene has been done to death in just about every Adam Sandler comedy ever made as well as “American Pie “2, and the fact the filmmakers still use this device is just tiresome because the audience’s reaction to it says more about them than anyone else.

Our main characters are also forced to go nude in several scenes with nothing but a tube sock or a teddy bear to cover their privates. Now I have seen far too many comedies to find this bit the least bit amusing anymore. Besides the Red Hot Chili Peppers did this same gag to greater effect years ago when these actors we see here were just babies. By the time this came up, I was very ready to leave the theater because the odds of anything original happening after this felt completely moot.

Furthermore, these characters end up saying some of the most asinine dialogue I have heard any character say in a long time. While it may be designed to make them sound hip and cool, they instead come across as homophobic and borderline racist. Miller, in particular, keeps making statements about different races and nationalities which need to be heard to be believed. I think the writers wanted Miller to be like Zach Galifianakis’ character from “The Hangover,” but while the latter was so funny because he never fully understood what was coming out of his mouth, Miller is clearly someone who should know better about what he is saying.

There is even another scene where Casey, while making small talk with the lovely coed Nicole (Sarah Wright), explains why he isn’t interested in joining a fraternity. Now I’m not going to repeat exactly what Casey said, but I can say that the audience I saw it with reacted in shock to what they heard. If it was intended to be funny, it failed miserably.

“21 and Over” marks the directorial debut of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore who, coincidentally, are the same two people who wrote the screenplay for “The Hangover.” They have said that “21 and Over” is not meant to be a copy of “The Hangover,” but I that they are just fooling themselves. This movie more or less has the same setup, and the only real difference is that none of the characters are trying to figure out what they did the night before because they know all the gory details which led them to where they are at. While Lucas and Moore are nice guys, they cannot hide how there is nothing here to set this movie apart from so many other comedies which came before it.

Still, I do have to give the actors some credit. While they are stuck with a script which clearly needed more work, they throw themselves into their performances with sheer comic abandon. Teller, whom we have gotten to know very well from the “Footloose” remake, “Whiplash” and “Top Gun: Maverick” does not is hold anything back as Miller, and he is a very talented actor. Astin, whom you might remember from “Pitch Perfect,” does have a very charming quality about him. Then there is Chon who managed to free himself from all those “Twilight” movies before this one, and he does pull off making Jeff look believably drunk. But in the end, their efforts do not matter much because this motion picture still sucks to an infinite degree.

When I turned 21 years old, my birthday celebration was nothing like the one portrayed here. In retrospect, I am thankful for that as what everyone goes through in “21 and Over” is more horrific than funny. There are few things more depressing in life than a comedy which does not make you laugh, and this is one of them.

½* out of * * * *

WRITER’S NOTE: Back in 2013 when “21 and Over” was released, the website VeryAware.com, in an article written by Courtney Howard, said there will be a very different version of it shown in China. It turns out Chinese companies put a lot of money into the making of this film and, as a result, it is being re-cut for their more conservative audiences. What they will end up seeing is a movie about how Jeff Chang leaves China to study in the United States and ends up being corrupted by “Western partying ways.” Apparently, it starts with Jeff at a Chinese college, and scenes for the movie were shot in the city of Linyi, Shandong province to reflect this. It will end with Jeff returning to China and realizing that his time in the U.S. was just a bad idea.

Will we ever get to see this version in America? Odds are it will be far more interesting than what we got here.

‘The Rules of Attraction’ Invites You to Look Beneath Its Seedy Surface

Posted on by The Ultimate Rabbit

I was flipping through what was available to watch on cable one day. I rarely go there unless there is a television show involved. There were no good horror movies on, and I was hoping there would be, but then I came across one called “The Rules of Attraction.” Based on the novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis, it was written for the screen and directed by Roger Avary, the same filmmaker who directed a kick ass heist movie named “Killing Zoe.” While this one is not quite as good as “Killing Zoe,” it has a number of memorable moments and takes a lot of risks which many films don’t often bother to.

“The Rules of Attraction” ensnares the audience in a world of spoiled rotten brats who have been handed everything to them on a silver platter. Witness their insane antics as they spend their time getting high and hopelessly inebriated at endless parties which take place at their preppy New England college. Obviously, they don’t seem to realize they are not superhuman, nor do they care about what will happen to their shallow souls assuming they ever survive their infinite decadence. These selfish and spoiled characters are a common fixture of the Ellis’ work, and he has since proclaimed this film to be the best adaptation of any of his novels.

While I want to despise these characters for what they do to others and themselves, both Ellis and Avery show their inescapable humanity and consciousness which lies not all that far beneath the surface, and each of them desperately wants to open themselves up to another they cannot stop thinking about. It’s this humanity which gives “The Rules of Attraction” another dimension, and it kept me from being completely repelled by all the characters’ shenanigans. As much as you want to see these young adults get their just desserts, none of them really deserve the severe consequences they end up receiving.

This film certainly offered many young actors a much-desired opportunity to shed their nice or squeaky-clean images for something completely opposite. We have actors here from “Dawson’s Creek” and “7th Heaven” who are clearly desperate to break from the shackles of their all-too-polite characters before they end up becoming permanently inseparable from them. It is not surprise they want to be seen as more adult than their ages would suggest as no one ever acts their age. Then again, who wants to?

I do, however, have to be honest and say Fred Savage, who plays a junkie named Marc, feels a bit out of place here. Please don’t get me wrong; he has a great cameo here, but the image of him as Kevin Arnold from “The Wonder Years” is impossible to wipe from my conscious mind. While watching him inject something lethal into his veins, all I could think of was him getting back together with Winnie Cooper. Still, Savage is always welcome to prove to me there is far more to him than that classic show in the future.  

For me, the biggest surprise of “The Rules of Attraction” was James Van Der Beek who plays Sean Bateman, a drug dealer and distant relative of Patrick Bateman from “American Psycho.” Like the other characters, Sean is selfish, greedy and more worried about his own problems than anyone else’s. Throughout, Sean presents himself as an opportunist who preys on the weaknesses of others, but Van Der Beek makes you see him as someone desperately longing for something pure and someone to connect with in a world where everyone seems more content living in their own tiny bubble.

Van Der Beek was very believable in this role to me, and there was nothing of Dawson to be found throughout. Looking back, I bet he was just dying to play a character like this so he could shatter the image which could have forever defined him to millions.

I imagine this was the same case with Jessica Biel of “7th Heaven” fame. She has more than shed whatever nice girl image she had from that show, and I bet this film was her first real opportunity to do so. Biel plays Lara Holleran, roommate to Lauren Hynde (Shannyn Sossaman) whom shares a lot of experiences with, including snorting cocaine until their noses bleed (“rusty pipes!”). Lara comes off as the most shamelessly selfish character in this film as she manipulates both the men and women around her to get what she wants. Her comeuppance near the end was richly deserved and almost had me cheering in my apartment.

Shannyn Sossaman portrays perhaps the purest character in all of “The Rules of Attraction” in Lauren Hynde. Lauren is a virgin, and we see her constantly looking through a book with pictures of venereal diseases perhaps to protect herself by reminding herself of the consequences which could befall her if she does not play it safe. Sossaman is a beauty to behold but her beauty is toned down here to make her seem a bit more ordinary, and it works effectively in her performance.

And then there is also Paul Denton, played by Ian Somerhalder, a gay man more concerned about a date he has, or thinks he does, with Sean to where a gay friend overdosing on drugs is more of annoyance than a genuine concern for him. Paul thinks he knows how Sean feels about him, and he cannot get him out of his mind. But as selfish as Paul may be, to see him get his heart broken in two is very sad, and Somerhalder makes his heartbreak all the more vivid.

When it comes down to it, “The Rules of Attraction” is essentially a love triangle of obsession as we watch several characters desperately pine for another, and yet the one they are pinning is instead more interested in someone else. In an atmosphere filled with shallow pursuits, all of them want something purer, more honest and real than why they have already been given, and there is something about this which I cannot help but relate to. That they may end up never getting what they want, and I found myself terrified by this realization. In the end, they may have to reevaluate where they are in their lives where they can go from here.

If this film proves anything the most strongly, it is this: Unrequited love is a bitch! When you are young, those painful emotions can feel far too epic.

Avary hides no taboos here as there are drugs, drinking, sex, date rape, suicide, attempted suicide, etc. He uses a lot of split screens which are effective in separating different moods in the same scene. One moment has him bringing the split screens for Sean Bateman and Lauren Hynde together, and it is brilliantly seamless to where I would love to know how the filmmakers accomplished it.

I also have to say “The Rules of Attraction” contains one of the most emotionally devastating suicide scenes I have ever witnessed in a motion picture. As a result, I will never listen to the Harry Nilsson song “Without You” ever again without thinking of this scene. Seriously, it proves to be as scaring a scene as watching that horse drown in “The Neverending Story.”

The one thing Avary ends up overdoing here is the time reversal effect. He rewinds the film at given moments to get to another point or character in the same setting, and these moments end up going on for too long. After a while, part of me was saying, “ALRIGHT! WE GET THE POINT ALREADY!”

“The Rules of Attraction” received mostly mixed reviews upon its release back in 2002, and I can certainly understand why. People reacted negatively to the characters here, and it is true many of them have few, if any, redeeming values. Then again, do characters need to be likable in order for a film to work effectively? I think not. At the very least, we come to understand their desperate yearnings to where we cannot help but see ourselves in them. That’s why I think the movie works as it never supplies us with one-dimensional characters, but instead with ones we find ourselves relating to even if we are not quick to do so. Seriously, I can sum up the frustrations of the characters with the title of a Nine Inch Nails song, “I just want something I can never have. “

If I have made “The Rules of Attraction” sound like the average Lars Von Trier depression extravaganza, I apologize. While this is essentially a black comedy with some very funny moments, it does contain some very serious scenes which have burned into my memory. Granted, the scene with the two gay men dancing on the bed to George Michael’s “Faith” is a big highlight as well as the restaurant scene which follows it, but this movie is an acquired taste and is not about to appeal to a mainstream audience. But if you have the stomach for it and are into the black comedy, you cannot avoid or easily dismiss this particular motion picture.

It’s interesting to watch this movie after having watched “The Sopranos” series finale. Like that last episode, this movie comes to an abrupt stop. We will never know what happens to these characters when, and if, they ever leave college. Then again, what more is there to say?

* * * out of * * * *

https://youtu.be/S_nuaOF8cFQ