Loser

What an aptly titled movie. If you’re wondering why there’s no quote for this one, it’s because there really weren’t any memorable lines in the whole movie.

This is Amy Heckerling’s (Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Clueless) vision of college life. Paul (American Pie‘s Jason Biggs) is a dorky guy from Backwards, U.S.A. Somewhere that they wear Kyle Broflovski style hats. He becomes the only person in his family to make it into college. N.Y.U. to be exact.

This is where the “fish out of water” story starts. Paul meets his roommates, Chris, Noah and Adam. They’re supposedly stylish, but they just come off as really annoying and stupid. One of them wears leather pants all the time and they all wear weird colored sunglasses. They also have a habit of spiking girls’ drinks so that they’ll consent to have sex with them. That’s the only way these guys will ever get any. One more reason for rufies to be illegal.

So Paul is being tormented by his roommates who just want to party. They tell him exactly how big of a loser he is because he studies and that he should drink more.

In the only class that Paul seems to have he enters the room by tripping down the stairs and falling into the chair right next to Dora (Mena Suvari from Americans Pie and Beauty–she has another one coming out called American Virgin. I’m surprised they didn’t rename this one American Loser just to keep the trend going). She’s the only person who seems to show any respect to the poor guy who just doesn’t know how to be part of the “in crowd.” Unfortunately she’s also the professor’s (Greg Kinnear) girlfriend. Prof. Alcott happens to be a real jerk and takes his rather unlawful girlfriend for granted. She’s too good for him. Go figure.

So Paul gets kicked out of his dorm by his wonderful buddies, moves into an animal clinic (!) and gets to know Dora a little better because one of his roommates gives her drugs that nearly kill her. So Paul finds her, takes care of her and falls in love with her. But she’s too much in love with Talk Soup Boy to know that what she’s got right in front of her is perfect for her. Paul’s just her buddy, right? Paul realizes that the guy’s a jerk, but he buys flowers and says that they’re from Alcott just to keep Dora from being upset. What a nice guy, right? Actually, he’s just plain dumb. I’ve almost been there before and it just makes the other guy look way too good. Face it, bud. You may be keeping her out of the doldrums, but you’re really just hurting her in the long run.

The problems with this movie abound. First off, it’s supposed to be a comedy, but it’s not very funny. ODs are rarely funny. Affairs with your profs can be funny, but not this one. Fish out of water comedies can be trite, but very funny. They didn’t take this one anywhere. Even cameos by comedians (Steven Wright, Dan Aykroyd and Andy Dick among them) didn’t help. The only one who seemed to be allowed to be funny was David Spade…and that was no fault of the writing. It was his delivery of the lines that was funny, not the lines themselves.

And there was way too much of the side characters. The roommates, as I said, were totally annoying and they were all through the damn movie! I was sick of them within about three seconds of meeting them and they had to show up all the time. There were totally non-sequitur scenes with them planning their party. Did we care? Not at all. Dr. Alcott was pretty stupid, too. Are people really that self absorbed and evil? Well, I guess they are, but do we need to see them in movies like this? And do they need to be played by Greg Kinnear who has always seemed like a much nicer guy? And do they have to be having sex with girls like Mena Suvari?!?! The only good characters were Paul and Dora. I guess it’s good when the two leads are interesting and you care if they get together, but could we have a few more people that we want to live through the movie?

I think there were scenes cut out, too, that would have helped the story make more sense. There’s a scene where two of the roommates catch up to Dora and start talking to her as if they knew her pretty well. They had only met her when she was sick from the drugs that they gave her. Would they have even recognized her? And where’s the scene where they’re looking for her for days on the streets of New York? They never would have just run into her like that.

Then there’s the missed opportunities. As I said before, they don’t use the fish out of water thing to it’s full potential. And there’s a point where Paul’s roommates (who, by the way, are completely interchangeable and may as well be nameless) find out about Alcott’s indiscretions. They blackmail him and then Paul comes in to talk to him. He thinks that Paul is in on it and tells Dora later. This is where Dora should start thinking that Paul is a jerk who is just using her to get a good grade out of Alcott. Nothing is done about this. It’s barely even mentioned! She finds out the truth and thinks nothing more of it. In fact, Alcott tells her the truth! Don’t you think a guy this stuck on himself would try to put any other potential suitor of his girlfriend down as much as possible?

And the ending. Wow. What an anti-climax. We all know how it ends, but it just ends! Nothing else. Just their first kiss and fade to black. No, “how’s their relationship” type stuff. It could have gone on for a while longer. I’m glad it didn’t, but it could have. It did, however, have Ms. Heckerling’s old Fast Times trick of telling us how the characters are doing now with a few lines about each person. Only one of them is worth it, though. The rest are basically just, “This guy’s in jail.” “This guy’s a drooling idiot.” Blah, blah, blah. Nothing funny at all.

I was really wanting to like this movie. It was going to be kind of about me. Yes, I was always one of those guys who never quite fit in, strange as it may seem. After all, I’m a God Of In now. But back in the day I was a dork. (This is self deprecating, by the way. I’m still a dork. I’ve got a website, don’t I?) And I always had really good female friends who never thought of me as any more than friends. Even when their boyfriends were jerks. So I just had to take it. I guess I’ll have to write that movie. (It’s copyrighted. Don’t steal it!)

I’m not really sure why we’re always so happy about Amy Heckerling doing a new movie. How many good movies has she really done? Fast Times was a nearly perfect vision of high school in a fairly good part of California in the 80s written by Cameron Crowe. Then Clueless came along in the 90s and almost did it again, just a little less realistically. Other than that none of her movies have really been that great. After all, who started the Look Who’s Talking flicks? And who single-handedly nearly ruined the Vacation series with European Vacation? And, well, I liked Johnny Dangerously, but no one else did. It was a bad movie, too. Maybe she just need to stick to high school and stop trying to branch out or grow up. She certainly can’t keep up with the times. This movie is supposed to take place in 2000, but people are still doing the L on the forehead thing and listening to music that came out before 1997. But it did have a pretty good soundtrack. It’s always good to hear fellow Austinites Fastball in a movie. And then to hear classic Elvis Costello right next to them. (I’ve always thought that the lead singer of Fastball sounded a little like Elvis, so that was interesting.)

So there were about two funny lines in the whole movie and I can’t remember them at all. Not worth my time or my $8. Five years and a nice contract and this is all Amy can come up with for us. Damn shame. Let’s hope that Amy, Jason, Mena and Greg can get better flicks next time. They’re all talented they just need the right material. (But Jason’s not doing so well. I hear that Boys And Girls was crap, too. Oops.)