Directed By: Todd Phillips
Starring: Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell
Tag line: "All the fun of college, none of the education"
Trivia: Director Todd Phillips's dog has a cameo in the movie as Garry, the oral sex instructor's dog
The premise of Todd Phillips’ 2003 comedy Old School may be utterly preposterous, but thanks to the combined efforts of its three leads, it still managed to make me laugh.
When he returns home early from a business trip, Mitch (Luke Wilson) receives the shock of a lifetime when he finds his live-in girlfriend Heidi (Juliette Lewis) preparing to have sex with a married couple! Looking to start over, Mitch rents a house near a local University, only to be informed by the school’s Dean (Jeremy Piven), a former acquaintance of his, that the entire area has been re-zoned. As a result, his house now lies in a part of town that falls under the University’s jurisdiction, meaning he’ll have to vacate the premises by the end of the month. Fortunately, his good friend Beanie (Vince Vaughn), has a plan: turn the building into a frat house! With the help of their newly-married pal Frank (Will Ferrell), Mitch and Beanie start up their own “civilian fraternity”, which, according to the college’s by-laws, will allow them to continue to live there (though they’ll have to share it with about a dozen pledges, some of whom aren’t even students). As Mitch, Beanie, and Frank enjoy all the privileges of college life, the Dean continues to look for a way to shut their house down.
The idea of three thirtysomething pals starting up their own college fraternity is fairly ludicrous, and the movie doesn’t waste a moment trying to justify it (we hear that Mitch and his pals have found a loophole in the college’s by-laws, though we never do learn what that “loophole” is). What saves the movie is its three stars. Wilson, Vaughn, and Ferrell are funny guys, and their various antics lead to a few good laughs. After promising his new wife Marissa (Perrey reeves) that he’ll avoid drinking, Frank (whose college nickname was “Frank the Tank”) gets drunk the very first night, takes off all his clothes, and announces he’s going to streak through the park (only to run into his wife and her friends along the way). This is a funny sequence, but my favorite scene has Mitch and the others driving a van (at top speed) through town, kidnapping pledges and forcing them to take part in a very strange hazing ritual (which, without going into spoilers, involves a cinder block and a rope tied to their penises). The pledges themselves also generate some laughs; one would-be fraternity brother, lovingly nicknamed “Blue” (Patrick Crashaw), is 89 years old!
Not all of the jokes work; one scene in particular, which features Andy Dick as an oral sex specialist, was more creepy than funny. But thanks to its three stars (all playing characters similar to ones they’ve portrayed before), Old School manages to overcome both its weaker moments and its outlandish premise, and in the process becomes a fairly entertaining screen comedy.