21 and Over

Careful what you wish for. Watching the so-so remake of Footloose back in 2011, a young Miles Teller caught my eye; bearing the charm and no little resemblance to a mid-80s John Cusack, I wondered how he would fare in a college comedy, a genre of movie that's been thin on the ground of late. Since no one really has taken over from Cusack's likeable teen/college guy (despite the best efforts of Hot Tub Time Machine) there's definitely a void to be filled.

So here we have Miles Tellar in a college comedy, only he's less like Cusack and more Jonah Hill in Superbad - loud, crude and dropping f-bombs as if he was sponsored and every one going to his favourite charity. He's Miller, the rowdy high school mate of buttoned-down business school student Casey (Astin), who has unexpectedly turned up on Jeff Chang's (Chon) college campus for his twenty-first birthday. A few drinks take a turn (a la The Hangover) for the worse and now Miller and Casey have to get the comatose Jeff Chang home and get him sober for his super important med school interview tomorrow morning. But where does he live?

It's supposed to be fun but the nastiness is hard to ignore in this Dude, Where's My Bro's Gaff? reheat. As Miller and Casey make their way through the night they meet a seemingly endless parade of unlikeable characters, which the heroes can include themselves - Jeff Chang's decision to urinate on the bar's patrons is rank. The American Pie frat boy misogynism is arguably passable because, like Stifler and co., they are punished for every 'naughty' thing they do but the casual racism and the unabashed U-S-A! attitude is oddly rewarded. Directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, best known for penning The Change Up and The Hangover Parts I through III, can't justify the lengthy digressions the light plot is prone to, like the house party drinking games. If the tangents were funny it wouldn't be a problem. But they're not. Not even occasionally.

I'd give Teller another go at the teen/college comedy as there is enough charm lurking underneath the abrasiveness here to suggest he can pull it off but he needs to pick smarter roles.