Frequently Hilarious Teen Comedy Somewhat More Inconsequential Than Expected

Rating: 6/10 (4 January 2008)

I have to agree that this 2007 comedy is ribald and frequently hilarious, but I'm not quite as taken as others by what they see as a paean to male bonding and friendship. That's because there is too stark a contrast between the over-the-top hi-jinks that prevail over most of the running time and the almost whimsically co-dependent way the relationship between the two best friends reveals itself to be. My expectations ran high given that filmmaker Judd Apatow produced the film, and as he proved with "The 40 Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up", he can bring unexpected heart into the most absurdly comical of situations. However, this delicate balancing act is what seems missing here since he let director Greg Motolla take over the reins this time. Aspiring to be more like "American Graffiti" than "American Pie", the result is a film with plenty of laughs but fares less in terms of lasting emotional resonance.
From a script penned by best friends Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (based on their own awkward adolescent years), the movie has a slim premise  chubby, potty-mouthed Seth and shy, geeky Evan are best friends about to graduate from high school and go to different colleges. Evan got accepted to Dartmouth, while Seth is going to the local community college. Seth, however, has a twist of good luck when he is partnered in home economics class with Jules, one of the school's coolest girls, who invites him and Evan to a big graduation blow-out at her parents' house. So hopped up by his sexual fantasies about Jules, Seth volunteers to take her food allowance and buy liquor for the party. Evan goes along with the shenanigans because he has a crush on Jules' best friend Becca, a good girl who actually likes him. Getting the alcohol is not easy because it means bringing nerdy Fogell into the mix since he has a fake ID that says he is 25, lives in Hawaii and his name is McLovin (just one name please). Needless to say, everything that could go wrong does, and the story splinters between Fogell's adventure with two irresponsible policemen and Seth and Evan's search for alcohol when they think Fogell has been arrested.
A spirited cast displays crack comic timing. Jonah Hill, already familiar as one of the slacker housemates in "Knocked Up", plays Seth with hormonally-driven brio, while Michael Cera (the put-upon son George-Michael in "Arrested Development" and now shining in "Juno") makes Evan a quietly affecting dweeb. In his film debut, Christopher Mintz-Plasse is a hilarious scene stealer as Fogell. Rogen (with a Fu Manchu moustache) and SNL's Bill Hader display a playful rapport as the police officers who show Fogell how to have a good time, and among the three actresses playing the girls the nerd brigade desires, Emma Stone is a particular standout as the sensible Jules. The drawings reflecting Seth's obsession are hysterically funny, as is the entire liquor store episode. It's too bad that the film feels overlong at nearly two hours, but I do applaud the sheer audacity and emotional transparency of the last scenes.
Plenty of extras come with the two-disc Unrated and Extended DVD set in a format that will be familiar to anyone who has bought the DVDs of Apatow's megahits. An entertaining though surprisingly vituperative commentary track is on Disc One with the cast and crew split between LA and New York. Disc Two has all the other extras including deleted scenes, a gag reel and the familiar line-o-rama clip (which shows quick alternative takes with different variations on lines improvised by the actors). There is also a thirteen-minute making-of featurette, video diaries, audition tapes, a short about the dancing opening title sequence, and video footage of early table readings going back to 2002 with different actors. The rest of the extras are targeted to true die-hard fans, such as videotape of a prank pulled on Hill related to his phobia of snakes and a half-hour series of clips called "Cop Car Confessions" with various actors in the back seat improvising with Rogen and Hader in the front.