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Old School Thirtysomething Mitch Martin (Luke Wilson) throws a wild party at the new home he's rented after splitting up with his unfaithful girlfriend Heidi (Juliette Lewis) only to discover that it belongs to the nearby college campus and the outraged Dean Gordon Pritchard (Jeremy Piven) tells him to get the hell out. His friend Beanie (Vince Vaughn) discovers the only way he can stay is to use the home for some kind of college use and organises the creation of a college fraternity on Mitch's behalf, open to anybody who wants to join.
What follows is the kind of old fashioned frat-house comedy movie you thought they didn't make any more, as the cat and mouse antics of Mitch's friends and the Dean escalate to absurd levels. The humour definitely belongs to the Eighties world of National Lampoon movies, such as the Chevy Chase Vacation series, but try as it might, Old School is just not as funny.
All the leads are great, especially Saturday Night Live alumni Will Ferrell as Frank the Tank, who once drunk, gets naked and streaks through the local town to the surprise and embarrassment of his new wife. But the problem appears to be down to a weak script and direction from Todd Phillips that lacks energy and vitality.
Sure, there are laughs, but there are too few of them. The laughs that do bubble to the surface are not milked to satisfaction as they might in the hands of John Hughes at his peak (as Todd Phillips seems to want to be). It's all too easy to imagine how funny the scene with Will Ferrell being shot in the neck by a tranquilliser dart might be with somebody else's name on the director's chair.
Phillips' previous film was the much funnier Road Trip, which was no great feat of originality, but it least it had a bit of exuberance and spunk to it. And with a trajectory like this, I'm seriously worried about his next big project, the reworking of Starsky and Hutch. I can only pray that Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller who can both make me laugh by breathing will save this movie... but I digress.
The premise for a movie like this about a bunch of testosterone fuelled guys who want to recapture their youth by partying, smoking weed, drinking beer and sleeping with chicks was never going to stand up to close scrutiny, but Old School falls down flat on just about every level. I wouldn't describe the movie as misogynistic but the stereotyping of the females as stripping college girls or shrewish wives might have been fine in the Eighties, but just seems out of step with the Twenty First Century. Sadly, I could have forgiven this aspect of Old School had the movie been funnier...
It's tough not to want to compare Old School with the slightly overrated National Lampoon’s Animal House from 1978. Where Animal House has the upper hand is that it feels fresher, wilder and more original than the plodding Old School.
Don't waste your hard earned cash on this movie, wait until it appears on TV, if you're going to watch this at all.
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