21 & Over

Yes, one's first legal drink in a bar is a rite of passage, but is it a subject that is worthy of a whole movie?  After all, the world is full of rites of passage that probably don't have any real cinematic value.  There is a reason that we don't see many films about getting your driver's license (though, there are a few there) or a first haircut, getting to vote or the day you get your braces off?  Growing up is just a long series of these firsts and we really aren't lining up to see them dramatized.

Of course, if 21 & Over stopped at just one, it would not exist.  Instead, the three 21-year-old lead characters here drink enough in one night to give an army platoon alcohol poisoning.  And when they are not drinking or puking or passing out, they are getting into fights, having car crashes, falling from third story windows and trying to get laid.

All of this stuff seems kind of romantic and funny before you reach legal drinking age, but after you get out of college, turns out to be kind of a drag.   

So, interestingly, the target audience for 21 & Over is mostly people who are 21 and under.  What's up with that?

21 & Over longs to be a college-aged The Hangover (it was written and directed by the guys who wrote that film), and it occasionally even connects.  However, more often it is reminiscent of the straight to video American Pie Presents movies.

The story... if it can really be called that... has two former high school buddies (Miles Teller and Skylar Astin) visiting a third friend's (Justin Chon) college for a surprise visit to take him out partying on his 21st birthday.  Problem is, the kid's no-nonsense dad is visiting and has gotten him a med school interview for 7 in the morning the next day.  So the friends have to promise that he will only have one beer and then get to sleep. 

You know that ain't happening, right?

What follows is a bacchanal of parties, drinking, smoking, puking, crashing, passing out and making out.

It would be much more interesting to experience than to watch, I think.

Still, the three young actors are likable enough to keep the film mostly grounded as the filmmakers wallow in the depravity. 

And wallow they do.  The filmmakers film one of the guys projectile vomiting with the same lovingly overwrought arty camera craft as stylized raindrops in a music video.  The ideal girl here is the one who will graphically discuss masturbation with the guys within seconds in their first conversation.  (I believe "I can't make it a day without flicking the old bean" is a pretty accurate paraphrase of the charming way she put it.)  And this is supposed to be the good girl.

The more the guys drink, the more the guys learn about each other.  Early on, the kid with the interview drinks himself into a stupor and the guys spend a good portion of the movie dragging around their passed out buddy like they are in Weekend at Bernie's. 

Turns out the guy doesn't want to be a doctor, his dad is forcing him into med school, he feels lost and may have even considered suicide... blah, blah, blah.

Stop the Debbie downer stuff dudes!  Shots everybody!  Shots!  Shots!  Shots!  Shots!  Shots!  Shots!  Shots!  Shots!  Shots!  Shots!  Everybody!

Like I said before, this stuff is all much more entertaining when you are there.  Watching it from the relative safety and comfort of a theater chair seems a little excessive, like if Jersey Shore were released on the big screen.

There is a long and storied history of college party movies and 21 & Over does not shame itself in that company.  However, it doesn't particularly stand out either.  This could just as easily be Van Wilder or College or PCU or Old School or I Love You, Beth Cooper.  21 & Over is better than some of those, worse than others.

In a college movie grading scale, I can't see it getting any better than a B- to a C, which is a perfectly acceptable passing grade, I suppose, but far from outstanding. 

Ken Sharp

Copyright ©2013 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: March 1, 2013.