Old School': Not a perfect comedy

Old School is the kind of movie you expect will make you snort with laughter and leave you smiling with ridiculous images in your head. It's about three twenty-something guys who decide to form their own fraternity, and stars veteran screen charmers Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn, as well as former SNL ringleader Will Ferrell. In other words, it's pretty much guaranteed to be funny.

The makers of the film work hard not to disappoint. Absurd and humorous scenes are presented to you one after another: the opening shows the central character, Mitch (Luke Wilson), leaving a conference for "Real Estate Lawyers of America" to find his girlfriend (Juliette Lewis) in the middle of an orgy. The story continues with Mitch's friends Beanie (Vince Vaughn) and Frank "the Tank" (Will Ferrell) throwing a huge party christened "Mitch-A-Palooza" at Mitch's new house situated on their alma mater's campus.

A pesky Dean tries to get rid of them by announcing that the house can only be used for school activities and Beanie thus establishes a fraternity that admits nerds, obese people, balding yuppies and an ancient war veteran. Snoop Dogg shows up at a party, Andy Dick cameos to teach his class, "The Art of the Blow Job" and even CNN's James Carville manages to drop by the set.

In the end Mitch, Beanie and Frank are transformed into better men, the bad guy eventually loses and the good guys win. But, the satisfactory laughs Old School is supposed to deliver end up being tainted with a sentimental depth the film just cannot deal with. You are left feeling rather sorry and concerned for the heroes of the movie: not the effect a comedy is supposed to have on you.

If you blink, however, you just might not see the serious issues fly over your head and you probably won't care about the fact they aren't handled well either. After all, the success of most slapstick comedy does depend on the fact that people sometimes just want to laugh and not much more.

So is Old School worth watching? Yes, but only if you bring along a crowd of frat boys and a keg.

The cast members themselves do what each of them does best. Luke Wilson plays the confused but cute Everyman that gets pushed around and Vince Vaughn recreates the married-with-kids version of his character from Swingers as a salesman for Speaker City who contemplates the party potential of Mitch's house while wearing a baby pouch. The third star, Will Ferrell, does everything from streaking down a street to performing a poetic gymnastics routine with a ribbon to show the madness that can erupt from the average repressed guy.

But a movie starring veteran screen charmers who co-wrote The Royal Tenenbaums and starred in the indie hit Swingers can't simply make a movie whose main goal is to provide a raunchy laugh. There's got to be something more. As a result, tiny lines of seriousness and sincerity manage to creep into the movie. A co-worker of Mitch begs to be let into the fraternity whining about how much he needs to escape from his monotonous life and Frank "the Tank" is faced with the very adult prospect of a divorce.

So, a movie that's supposed to make you forget about the rules you face in reality, and hopefully make you dumber than you were before actually ends up making you think: what are these guys doing with their lives? If growing up and committing yourself to a job and relationship is so horrible, how are you supposed to deal with the future besides going back to the college campus to wrestle in a pool of jelly?