Old School DVD Review
Posted by Julian Cantella on 06.14.2003
More like the thirteenth season of The Simpsons than the third.
Old School DVD
Release Date: June 10, 2003
Rated R
90 minutes
In Season 3 of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson was one of the most carefully constructed and perfectly balanced characters on television. Despite being stupid, unfocused, and out of touch, Homer proved in episode after episode of the series that he truly cared about his family. He was a sympathetic and likable character, one of the main reasons the show has lasted as long as it has. Now, take a look at the Homer Simpson of Season 13. The warmth, gentle humor, and kindness of the old Homer is gone; in his place stands a bumbling oaf, a drunk who disregards his job and incessantly embarrasses and degrades his wife and family. The Simpsons is still one of the funniest shows on television, and one of the best, but the emotional core that made it a classic is gone. Almost all modern comedy suffers from this same problem; filmmakers seem to feel that characters who are good people can’t be funny. Unfortunately, Old School falls into the same trap: the jokes come at the expense of the characters.
The Film
Mitch (Luke Wilson), a young and bored lawyer, decides to come home early from a conference one night and finds that his girlfriend (Juliette Lewis) has a fondness for rather lewd sexual explorations. His friends, the recently married recovering party animal Frank (Will Ferrell) and the cynical businessman Beanie (Vince Vaughn) realize Mitch needs a huge change in his life to get him out of the dumps. Luck strikes when they find Mitch a house on the campus of nearby Harrison University, where all three are alumni. Beanie, the ringleader of the group, finds a loophole in the college rulebook that allows him to formulate a rather odd plan: Mitch’s house will become the home base for a new fraternity. This fraternity will include not only current students, but also anyone else the founders want to join, from a middle-aged Oriental businessman to an 89 year old former Navy recruit.
Predictable hijinks ensue, with Mitch, Beanie, and Frank returning to their old school ways. Frank reverts to his old persona “Frank the Tank”, a beer swilling, streaking party animal who quickly becomes estranged from his wife. Mitch wakes up one morning in bed with the underage daughter of his boss, and becomes known as “The Godfather” for being the owner of the fraternity’s headquarters. Beanie, meanwhile, oversees the whole operation, setting up parties attended by Snoop Dogg, fights in tubs of KY jelly, and initiation tests that involve hanging concrete blocks from prospective members genitalia.
In a recent interview, director Todd Phillips (whose best known prior work is the MTV-produced Road Trip) listed his primary motivation for making films as money. This attitude comes through loud and clear in his most recent production, with a script and directing style that fail through what appears to be a sheer lack of effort. Many of the jokes are funny, but they never reach their full potential. The direction, meanwhile, shows a complete lack of style; the camera often just sits and records the action in a manner more common to direct-to-video productions.
Worst of all, however, is that all of the jokes come at the expense of the characters. Almost everything the three main protagonists do is juvenile, crass, and physically or emotionally damaging to those around them. Simply put, they’re very unlikable people. Take, for example, the funniest scene in the film, in which Will Ferrell’s Frank accidentally shoots himself in the throat with a tranquilizer dart. Initially, he has harmed no one but himself, and is able to carry a few minutes of the film with amusing physical and vocal comedy. For some reason, though, the scene is ruined in its climax by having Frank stumble through a young child’s birthday cake. This unfunny act ends the scene on a sour note and makes Frank into a wholly unsympathetic individual. A more artfully written script (take other over-the-top but superior comedies such as Animal House or Tommy Boy) would have created characters that do stupid things but are inherently good people. By leaving its audience without anything to care about or people to root for, Old School fails to become anything more than just another throwaway (if amusing) comedy.
Video Quality
There’s little to be said about this solid transfer, as all of the visuals look as good as the theatrical release. The colors are well balanced, as is the contrast, which comes into play quite often during the film’s numerous party scenes.
Audio Quality
With standard audio options, the sound on this release fails to capture the raucous noise of party life with appropriate vim and vigor. The music is way too high in the mix, with the dialogue in many scenes being almost completely drowned out. Furthermore, I had to turn my sound up to almost twice the normal level to get the volume to standard height.
Special Features From the Cutting Room Floor offers 8 Deleted Scenes, each of which are amusing but would have made the final cut of the film even more plot heavy than it already is.
Old School Orientation is a 13 minute featurette covering the plot and cast of the film. Although this was shoddily made, it remains fairly interesting, particularly for the interviews it contains with the cast who played second and third tier characters.
An Actor’s Studio Spoof, similar to sketches done on Saturday Night Live, features Will Farrell, as James Lipton, interviewing himself, Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson, and Todd Phillips. At 21 minutes, it runs ridiculously long, and has a very low sound level that may in part reflect the total lack of enthusiasm from all those involved.
The feature commentary, with those four mentioned above, is then all the more surprising in its actual entertainment value. In a low-key way, Vaughn and Ferrell discuss many of the events in the film as if they were true, and also fabricate various fictional squabbles that supposedly occurred during the making of the film. The style of humor exhibited here would have made a perfect complement to the madcap physical comedy in the movie, and probably could have resulted in a far superior film.
There is also a photo gallery, a collection of trailers, information on the cast and crew, and production notes.
Film: 4.5
Video: 9.0
Audio: 5.0
Special Features: 6.5
The 411: Old School is an amusing diversion, but nothing more. Some of the more explicit scenes in the film may appeal to fans of gross out humor, but ultimately the weak script and crude characters rob the film of any lasting appeal. Unfortunately, this is just another example of comedy more akin to The Simpsons’ thirteenth season than its third.
