Old School (2003)
Ahhh the screwball comedy stylings of Todd Phillips. You might remember him as the director of Road Trip or Starsky & Hutch. Well in between those two pieces of cinematic... cinema.. he directed a little movie called Old School, starring Luke Wilson (definitely not Owen Wilson), Vince Vaughn & Will Ferrell. & like the old college movies of yore, this flick contains more than it's fair share of cussing, drinking & nudity, but with a certain boyish charm one could attribute to the lead actors.
When I first heard about this movie, I couldn't picture Luke Wilson in a screwball college flick, no matter how hard I tried. Admittedly I didn't try that hard, because really, a dude's gotta make a living. As newly single Mitch, he moves into a house just barely off of a college campus as a means to a fresh start to his life. His old friends Frank (Ferrell) & Beanie (Vaughn) come up with a brilliant idea to start a fraternity & get "so much ass here... like boy band ass." Actually, it was just Beanie's idea, being the guy who's grown up the most out of the three.
Old School has it's fair share of cameo performances & hot young things, notably one HOT Elisha Cuthbert as a girl Mitch nails, & then finds out the next day she's his boss's daughter & is about to graduate high school. Oh my goodness. The humour is abrasive, crass & at some points, definitely disturbing. Take Ferrell's performance at a child's birthday party, so very very wrong.
Anyways, despite some of it's drawbacks & it's impossible storyline, it's still a pretty funny movie. Plus, Jeremy Piven's in it, & you can't go wrong with Jeremy Piven in your movie. He seems to be playing the polar opposite of his character in PCU, another college screwball comedy. I can think of worse ways to spend an hour & a half,
& I'll give Old School a 3.5 outta 5, because the disturbing parts were really, very disturbing if you think about it.
Roger Ebert's scathing review of Old School (2003)