Old School (2003)

This is one of the movies that started off the "Frat Pack". Director Todd Phillips made a hell of a comedy movie. Although not consistently funny, the movie does have its iconic moments that can be compared to later comedies.It had funny characters, great chemistry between the actors, quotable lines, a true classic comedic gold.Sean William Scott's cameo was one of the funniest scenes in the film, it would be awesome to see him more often in more "Frat Pack" movies.Will Ferrell was definitely the star of the film and had the best scenes. One of his funniest performances yet.I cant really say much about the film, the movie speaks for itself. If you haven't watched it yet, then what are you waiting for?

Old School is a very funny movie with a great and different story line and a fantastic cast.Will Ferrell is great in this movie like he always is.Todd Phillips made this movie,long before The Hangover,and fans should really enjoy it,and pretty much everyone in their twenties loves the Hangover.I didn't like how they killed off Blue,I thought it was a dark turn that wasn't need,but other than that,Old School is a fun and light hearted comedy.Fans of both Will Ferrell and Todd Phillips should enjoy Old School,but not as much as some of their better known work.Three men sick of their adult life and all its challenges decide to relive their college days with students that are currently attending.

"Old School" is a somewhat funny comedy, in the vein of "Animal House", in which a group of middle aged men start a college fraternity in order to escape the drudgery of their middle class, white collar world.The film stars Vince Vaughn, Luke Wilson and Will Ferrell, but possesses few jokes and little insight. What humour there is comes mostly from Vaughn and Ferrell. Ferrell plays his usual slow-witted, goofy, overly sincere gentle giant, and Vaughn's a deadpan quip-trader. Most of the film is slow, dull and plot-heavy, but these two make it bearable.Unlike most "teen sex comedies", this one is aimed squarely at older men. It's a "turn back the clock" fantasy, but one carefully designed to negate any of the unseemly aspects such a fantasy may entail. And so our heroes sleep with the bosses daughter and teenage girls, but it's okay because our heroes were unconscious and "she" wanted it. Likewise, our heroes dump their wives, but it's okay, because it is "she" who wanted to end things and their relationship wouldn't have worked anyway. And so on and so on.7/10 – See "Frat House", a documentary by Todd Phillips, or Frederick Wiseman's "High School" and "High School 2".

The most distressing thing that happens when you're watching a comedy with a talented cast is to arrive midway through the movie and find yourself asking: 'Why am I not laughing?' That was the point I reached while watching "Old School", a raunchy comedy, with a wonderful cast that works hard but just can't seem to get the material off the ground."Old School" is a college frat house comedy, a far descendant of National Lampoon's Animal House, but focusing on a group of guys who are pushing 40 and can't seem to let go of the thrill of their college fraternity days. They are likable guys. There is Beanie (Vince Vaughn), a family man who feels trapped. There is Mitch (Luke Wilson), whose life changes after he catches his nymphomaniac girlfriend (Juliette Lewis) hosting an orgy in their bedroom. And there's Frank (Will Ferrell) once known as "Frank the Tank", a once-legendary party animal who is about get married and settle into a life of hanging curtains and picking through carpet samples.What lies at the heart of these guys is that they can't (or won't) let go of their glory years of wild parties, beer bongs and easy women. They refuse to grow up and move on. Mitch, who owns and appliance store with Beanie, buys a house near Harrison College, his old alma mater. However, after a particularly successful party, he is informed by the college's Dean Gordon Prichard (Jeremy Piven) that the house is zoned specifically for college social functions. He also reminds Mitch how he and his buddies use to pick on him back in college and with that, he happily presents an eviction notice.What to do? The guys come up with a plan to keep the house and rekindle their campus lifestyle. Through an administrative loophole they find that they are able to form a fraternity, which they do out of misfit student, middle-aged co-workers, and an elderly retiree who is somewhere north of 90. Many of these guys (including Mitch, Beanie and Frank) are not even students at Harrison, but that's part of the loophole, you see.What follows is suppose to be a raucous college campus comedy but the movie is so erratic that it never finds its center. Director Todd Phillips, who has made better films than this like "The Hangover" and "Starkey and Hutch", missteps here because his scenes don't come together out of characters or situations. They are a series of gags built out of raunchiness and bad taste. That's not a bad thing, but when the scenes don't come together, it just feels like a series of sketches.The lack of drive keeps the movie from building any kind of momentum. Plus, the characters, especially Mitch played by Luke Wilson, is so laid back that we never really understand how he got his reputation as a legendary party animal. Vince Vaughn's Beanie is believable as a party animal but he is so angry that you wonder how he ever has time to have fun. And Frank is such a genial good guy that we want him to break away from this pack and live his own life, or his own movie. He's the butt of embarrassments, especially when he gets drunk at a party and streaks down the middle of the highway. He has a scene late in the film when he is hit with a tranquilizer dart and ruins a kid's birthday party that is so labored and so mean that I found myself feeling sorry for the kid.I know I sound like a grump. I realize that I'm suppose to just sit back and enjoy these guys, but the movie never really goes anywhere. For me, I just didn't laugh very much. Wait! I did laugh at one gag involving the pledges who are required to tie cinder blocks to a certain portion of their anatomy and then drop them off a ledge. The payoff was so unexpected that I laughed. It was the one genuine laugh in the whole movie. If the screenwriter could have built on that, they might have had something.