Old School

December 10, 2004

Rated: R Runtime: 91 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Old School is a 2003 attempt at a staple of the early 80’s, the raunchy campus comedy. In those days, gratuitous displays of bouncing bare boobies were common on the big screen and jokes did not have to be filtered for political correctness. Old School is no Animal House or Porky’s, but by today’s standards it is pretty rowdy.

Old School

Mitch, played by Luke Wilson, comes home early from a business trip out of town to find his wife having some sort of twisted orgy at home. His buddies hook him up with a house on the local campus. However, to keep it they have to form a fraternity. They do, and the house and frat quickly become party central with everything from Snoop Dogg concerts to nekkid KY Jelly wrestling.

Luke Wilson is pretty much the straight man here. Will Ferrell, playing Frank the Tank, steals many scenes in this movie. The other buddy, Beanie, is played by Vince Vaughn. If you’ve seen either Made or Swingers and enjoyed Vaughn’s characters in those movies, you’ll like him here. He’s money.

We were happy to see a sophmoric comedy that actually has an R-rating instead of the cursed PG-13. The nudity is still rather tame, but at least they didn’t pull any punchs when it comes to everything from swatting children out of the way to tying concrete blocks to pledge’s genitalia. There are some genuinely funny moments in the movie. Unfortunately it ends up being a bit disjointed with some slow spots.

Unfortunately the real slow spots in the movie are toward the end. The last half really drags quite a bit and the movie finishes with a whimper. The jokes attempted toward the end come across as just silly. The first half of the movie had us thinking 4 stars. The last half had us thinking 2 stars. So we’re gonna split the difference and give this Old School 3 stars. You can certainly skip this on the big screen, but there are enough laughs to make it a very worthwhile DVD.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 3 Stars, Comedy, Ellen Pompeo, Juliette Lewis, Luke Wilson, R, Theatrical, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell