Don’t know if the staying at home 24*4 due to the pandemic is dumbing me down, but my movie choices seem to be getting worse by the day. All I wanted was a comedy film, so I picked ’21 & Over’ which has two directors – Jon Lucas, Scott Moore. Guess what – two many cooks spoil the broth.
There was however another reason why I picked this film on Netflix – it stars Miles Teller in the lead, the guy who shot to fame with the 2014 film ‘Whiplash’. Teller plays college drop-out Miller, who insists on taking his friend Jeff Chang out for a wild night of partying to celebrate his 21st birthday. This is just day before Chang has a big interview for medical school.
Miller drags Chang and another friend to first get the birthday boy pissed drunk, quite literally, because our boy Chang chugs so much, that he pees on people in the bar. That scene was mildly funny and largely gross. What follows is your typical crazy college night out gone wrong, it’s like ‘American Pie’ meets ‘The Hangover’, but with some very bad script-writing. Until I began writing the review, I wasn’t even aware that the film is from the same set of writers. So they basically plagiarized their own plot, put a bunch of younger guys in it and made a stale silly dick flick.
The first half has some fun moments, but things get excruciatingly contrived and boring in the second-half. The boys sneak into a sorority house to get a girl’s number and create a mess. After that they do a lot more stupid stuff that begins to get on your nerves because it’s not hilarious at all.
As far as the cast is concerned, the choice of actors is not bad. But what can you do with a good cast if the script sucks? Justin Chon, who plays Jeff Chang, was very likable as the drunk idiot and nails his role.
Well, there is not much else to say about this film except that maybe you are better off not watching it. Unless you are pissed drunk with friends. Maybe that will make the movie seem funnier and more enjoyable.