Slackers (DVD)

...I was talked into getting Slackers after a friend recommended it, with the line "It's like American Pie, but with intelligence". Oh what a mistake, maybe I misheard him, but Slackers is definitely not an intelligent version of American Pie. I can see the similarities, the stars of the film are 3 university students, a nerd and a beautiful girl and there is plenty of over the top gags which would fit into an American Pie movie. But unlike ...
...basis of the story to Slackers is a love story, some people have made a comparison between this and the story of Cyrano de Bergerac, but trust me, the similarity is very small. We see the university geek; blackmail 3 students into helping him win the affection of his dream girl, unfortunately this backfires as his dream girl falls for one of the blackmailed students. This is really very weak and on its own would really struggle to fill out the film. ... more

The university years are the best years of your life, especially for Dave, Sam and Jeff. For the past four years, the three room mates have scammed and cheated their way to the edge of greatness, and with just their finals to go, graduating with honours seems to be a dead cert. That is until geeky Ethan catches them in a scam to steal an exam paper, and threatens to get them busted unless they help him to pull Angela the girl of his dreams.

With the threat of academic failure looming, the three mates have no option but too use all their cunning and conniving skills to manipulate Angela into fancying Ethan. But as Dave attempts to convince her that Ethan is actually a cool guy and not a nerd, he finds himself in a dilemma as they start too fall for each other. When Ethan realizes that the girl of his dreams has fallen for one of the guys who was meant to be helping him, he looses it. Not only does he want to get the room mates chucked out of university but also split up the new relationship between Dave and Angela. Does he succeed? Do the guys turn the tables on him? Does true love find its way? Do we really care?

I was talked into getting Slackers after a friend recommended it, with the line "It's like American Pie, but with intelligence". Oh what a mistake, maybe I misheard him, but Slackers is definitely not an intelligent version of American Pie. I can see the similarities, the stars of the film are 3 university students, a nerd and a beautiful girl and there is plenty of over the top gags which would fit into an American Pie movie. But unlike American Pie, Slackers doesn't gel as a decent film. First of the problems is that although the film is set in the real world, it features too many fantasy sequences which don't really have any meaning in the film. Then there are the outrageous gags, which although are on par with the sort of gross out humour you see in modern teen comedies (look out for singing male genitalia), seem to have been added purely for shock value rather than adding to the story. Finally, the cast are trying far too hard, and at times there performances come over as laughably poor.

Okay, so the basis of the story to Slackers is a love story, some people have made a comparison between this and the story of Cyrano de Bergerac, but trust me, the similarity is very small. We see the university geek; blackmail 3 students into helping him win the affection of his dream girl, unfortunately this backfires as his dream girl falls for one of the blackmailed students. This is really very weak and on its own would really struggle to fill out the film. So on top of this, you have the cover story which is how the 3 lads manage to scam their way through university as well as getting the background information on the dream girl. Without this cover story, Slackers would be a really bad film.

In the lead role of Dave is Devon Sawa (Final Destination), and out of all the leading cast, probably puts in the best performance as the 'face' of the 3 scammers. The next most important character is Ethan, the geek, played by Jason Schwartzman (Bewitched), best way to describe this character is as a poor imitation of Jim Levenstein (American Pie) but make him even more of a geek. Next is Angela, the dream girl, played by Jaime King (Sin City), sadly although her role should have been one of the most important parts in the film, she is nothing more than eye candy. The other two scamming room mates are played by Jason Segel and Michael C. Maronna, and are mainly in the film as support for the leading 3.

The film is the directional debut of Dewey Nicks and sadly it shows, as there are several things wrong with this movie which probably wouldn't have happened if this had been given to a more seasoned director. The sound track is a pretty bland affair with only 2 numbers sticking out, and they were "Three is a magic number "and "The Sign".

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The Cast
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Devon Sawa .... Dave Goodman
Jason Schwartzman .... Ethan Dulles
Jaime King .... Angela Patton (as James King)
Jason Segel .... Sam Schechter
Michael C. Maronna .... Jeff Davis (as Michael Maronna)
Laura Prepon .... Reanna
Jim Rash .... Head T.A. Philip
Don Michaelson .... Professor Markoe

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Technical Details
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Certificate: 15
Length: 86 mins
Originally released: 2002

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Bonus Material
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Thankfully the only bonus features were a handful of trailers and some production notes which basically described the plot and the main characters. I don't think I could have managed to watch any extras, so was very relieved by the lack of them.

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The Message & Christian View Point
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None, there is not that much depth to the film.

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Conclusion & Rating
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So Slackers, sadly one of the most disappointing films I've watched, maybe I was expecting too much, as it certainly didn't live up to its billing. Perhaps there is a little bit of irony with the films title "Slackers" as I'm sure the cast and crew were cutting corners at every possible opportunity. Personally I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone, but I am sure fans of gross out comedy will gain some satisfaction from it.

Slackers is available on Amazon for £6.97, which is definitely over priced. If you really want to get this then seriously shop around to avoid feeling cheated.
 

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