Baywatch was
an utter disappointment that night.
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Three years
ago American Pie set the standard for teen comedy. The question
was could 'Slackers' surpass American Pie’s popularity?
By Neil Heath
The answer is not quite, and that’s a shame because it started so
well.
The plot
Dave (Sawa),
Sam (Segel) and Jeff (Maronna) are scammers. They lied and cheated
their way through High School and are continuing to do so through
college.
However, the college oddball Ethan (Schwartzman) cottons on to their
little scams and blackmails them. They have to either help Ethan
win the heart of the gorgeous Angela (Prepon), or face expulsion
from the college.
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Jason Schwartzman
as College weirdo Ethan. |
So this begins
their biggest scam yet, a seemingly impossible task, which is made
even harder when Dave falls for Angela himself…
Review
The biggest problem with Slackers is that the funniest character
isn’t in the film enough, and that’s Jason Schwartzman’s character
Ethan.
Ethan is a six-toed
weirdo verging on complete lunacy, for example his best friend is
a doll made of Angela’s own hair. When he’s not in a scene you long
for his presence.
He’s not exactly
a hero; if you went to school with someone like Ethan you’d be giving
him a wide berth of titanic proportions.
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The star
of 'Final Destination' Devon Sawa plays Dave. |
But, he’s the
most appealing character in the film, if he wasn’t in it, ‘Slackers’
would be incredibly flat.
The best bits
of the film are broken up by the slushy romance between Dave and
Angela, which is quite frankly rather dull.
The only explanation
for the insertion of these scenes was probably to appeal to the
girls, but even they would see those scenes as a convenient time
to pop to the toilet.
So what could have been a very good film, turns out to be pretty
flat, even though some of the scenes will make you laugh out loud.
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