Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
Slackers made no impression when it was in movie theaters - and it shouldn't now.
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 30, 2002
Slackers (R)
A trio of college cheaters (Devon Sawa, Michael Maronna, Jason Segel) are discovered by a brown-nosing nerd (Jason Schwartzman) who'll snitch if they don't arrange his date with a dream girl (James King). But Sawa's character falls in love with her, setting off a series of crass double-crosses and pranks, running out of ideas long before the 87-minute running time is completed. First impressions: "It's the kind of wisecracking, attention-grabbing humor that might be funny to Bourbon Street bystanders on a wild night, but you don't pay $7 to see it there. There's an art to disruption that such amateurs seldom consider but filmmakers always should. (Director Dewey) Nicks doesn't possess the subversive flair of Wes Anderson, and David H. Steinberg's script is a crusty casserole of crudeness yelled by a cast of actors too young to be slumming like this.
"Nicks hired aren't-they-dead-yet stars Leigh Taylor Young and Mamie Van Doren to do that. Both play grotesquely oversexed versions of Stifler's mom in American Pie. Schwartzman, who seemed so promising in Rushmore, gives an irritating, arm-flapping performance as overbearing as his eyebrows. At least he's energetic compared to Sawa, whose pinup looks are morphing into Mark Hamill."
Second thoughts: This film's fast disappearance from theaters restored a bit of my faith in moviegoers' intelligence.
Rental audience: Tom Green junkies.
Rent it if you enjoy: Freddy Got Fingered, in which case, professional help is strongly suggested.