Ben Palmer’s “The Inbetweeners” is essentially a British
version of “American Pie” in Europe. It’s about four friends who go on a wild
and crazy sex and alcohol fueled trip. Except it’s British so that means
there’s a whole new lingo. Instead of “vacation” they say “holiday,” instead of
“hot” they say “fit.” You won’t hear any one call each other “bro” or “dude,”
but “mate.” As with all of these kinds of movies, laughs are sure to be found,
and the young (mostly male, but some female too) demographic that the film is
made for should be mildly entertained at the very least. But at the same time,
“The Inbetweeners” in the eyes of an American audience, isn’t anything they
haven’t seen before. When I said, “British version” before, I should have said
knockoff.
Stop me if these characterizations sound familiar: There’s
Will McKenzie (Simon Bird), the super nerdy, annoying virgin; Jay Cartwright
(James Buckley), the obnoxious, sex crazed one. Simon Cooper (Joe Thomas), the
love sick, sensitive boy, who’s just been dumped by his long time girlfriend.
And finally there’s Neil Sutherland (Blake Harrison), the weirdo of the group
who seems to have a fetish for old ladies. Although, a general term to describe
these four is…losers.
They’ve just graduated from high school, and before they go
their own ways in life the four friends (or, since this is a British film I
should say “lads”) decide to go on one final summer adventure together in
Greece. What happens on the journey isn’t anything you wouldn’t expect coming
from a movie like this. Most of the movie consists of the four lads, going
around partying, trying to have sex but not being successful, making fools of
themselves in public. They do at one point they meet a group of friendly girls.
But all of the major plot points and realizations at the end, you can see
coming from a mile away. Also, at a certain point the film becomes repetitive
and it runs out of gas at the end.
The screenplay by Iain Morris and Damon Beesley contains the
usual set of raunchy jokes. Jokes involving drugs, alcohol, sex, embarrassing
parents, crazy locals, hangovers, pranks, etc. There’s even a scene where Jay
gets caught masturbating by his parents. And the hotel that they stay at is
dump, so the filmmakers get their money’s worth out of that joke department.
Now I agree, there are some inspired bits here and there, but by and large it’s
more of the same. In fact I would even say “The Inbetweeners” is just a tad
cleaner (in content) than “American Pie” and “American Pie,” by today’s
standards, is fairly tame. Sure, there are a few gross out gags; we do see a
penis but it wasn’t nearly as shocking as I thought it would be.
All four of the young lads (OK, that’s the last time I’ll
use it, I promise) do what’s expected of them in regards to performances but
they don’t go beyond their originally drawn outlines. The film is based on a
2008 cult British television show of the same name and it’s easy to see why
this would be popular in England. This is their native version of “American
Pie.” I only watched one episode of the show before I lost interest but I would
guess that if you watched it you’d probably get more out of the movie. You
would have gotten to know the characters over a longer period and understand
some of the non-American jokes (what few there are). But a movie has to stand
on its own feet and as a movie alone “The Inbetweeners” offers a very mildly fun diversion, with nothing
new to bring to the Teen Sex Comedy table.
No comments:
Post a Comment