Old School (2003)

I rewatched Old School last night and was left so baffled and frustrated by it that I actually felt like doing a completely pointless recap writeup of a movie so forgettable that no one could possibly give a shit about. Because that's what I do.

Old School doesn't seem to be able to decide if it's a movie about a man overcoming a mid-life crisis, a college boozefest, a shameless titty flick, or a coming of age story, or a heartfelt rom com. There's seeds of all of these and none of them take root.

The outset of the movie takes placei n the greyest room ever, a "Real Estate Lawyers" seminar of some kind. The room is grey. Eveyone is in grey suits. Because in Hollywood lawyers are the most boring people on the planet (apart from maybe accountants). As someone who works with lawyers, here's a secret: those motherfuckers go off. They work hard, make a lot of money, and when they see an opportunity to party they do it right.

But we need to establish our protagonist Mitch (Luke Wilson) as someone with a shitty life and the best way to do that is to hamfistedly identify him as someone stuck in a rut. What sounds more boring on paper than real estate law? Mitch, because he's the hero, is fed up and leaves his colleague with a tape recorder to record the seminar so he can leave early and catch and early flight.

He successfully boards a plane after a relatively painless sequence where he needs to pass through a metal detector multiple times because he keeps setting it off, eventually raising so much suspicion that an assault-rifle toting guard calls for backup. Admittedly this movie would have begun production when post-9/11 hysteria was peaking, but this still feels over the top even when you factor in that it was a product of its time. I'm surprised there was no scene in a back room where a security officer pointedly drizzles a massive amount of lube onto a gloved finger. Frankly at this point you kind of expect it.

Mitch boards his flight and does finally get home ahead of schedule. Hearing moaning and grunting from his bedroom he obviously fears the worst, that his girlfriend (Heidi, who we only see in this one scene) is cheating on him. He bursts in, and surprise! She's just having some me time accompanied by some hardcore porn. Mitch soldiers on and figures since Heidi's good to go he can get in on the action, because presumably there's been something missing from their love life and this is a chance to reinvigorate it. Heidi stammers haltingly trying to get Mitch to stop undressing, the reason for which is the two naked (and for some reason blindfolded) people emerging from the en suite bathroom, startling Mitch. Double surprise! Heidi's been cheating in Mitch by having threesomes behind his back. her excuse for this is that she tried to tell him she wanted this and he didn't pick up on it, dismissing it as "dirty talk". Which is like me telling my wife I'm horny then getting head in a gas station bathroom whenever she's not in the mood. Upset, Mitch goes to leave, only to be confronted by a stranger at the front door who informed Mitch he's "here for the gang bang", because triple surprise! It's not limited to threesomes! let's rub some more salt in the wound!

Meanwhile there is a scene where Mitch's buddy Frank (Will Ferrell) gets married, which is integral to the plot and had to have time devoted to it. Really.

So Mitch moves out and gets a new house near a college campus, for reasons. His friends Beanie (vince Vaughn) and Frank help him throw a massive party which the college kids all come to because why wouldn't they want to hang with a bunch of guys in their late 30s? That's not even remotely implausible.

Frank's new wife warns him not to relapse into "Frank the Tank", which of course makes her an oppressive shrew and therefore the bad guy, probably. Frank of course gets wasted and relapses into "Frank the Tank", by which I mean he drinks and has a good time in a completely harmless way. Mitch wakes up next to Darcie (Elisha Cuthbert) who he presumably had sex with. She bids him farewell and leaves after a little morning-after awkwardness, introducing Mitch to the concept of casual sex.

Mitch isn't at his lowest point yet, he still has his job. Well let's have a scene where his boss chews him out for some screw up, which they deliberately make sound as dull as possible. During this scene the boss' daughter walks in for some reason. Quadruple surprise! It's Darcie! Mitch banged his boss' daughter, what a chump! QUINTUPLE SURPRISE, she's not even a college student. She's 7 months away from graduating... HIGH SCHOOL. THIS IS HILARIOUS, PROBABLY.

At this point for no particular reason the (MEAN OL') Dean of the college informs Mitch that the house he literally just rented is now only suitable for college use and he has to vacate. Mitch puts up half-hearted protests, apparently bamboozled by this turn of events despite being a real estate lawyer. No wonder he's getting shit on at work, he's apparently terrible at his job.

Beanie proposes they start a fraternity, so Mitch can continue to live in the house. Mitch protests that this will not happen. Then in the next scene they're in a black van with stockings on their head so they can kidnap their new frat pledges. See? Mitch was saying they wouldn't do something then they're immediately doing that thing! This is what comedy looked like in 2003.

They cause destruction of property and endanger lives, for which there are no consequences whatsoever because there are no police in this movie. Then there's a scene where they take far too long to explain to their pledges they are going to have a trust exercises where they tie cinder blocks to their dongs and throw them off the building, "trusting" that there is enough slack in the cord. Of course this coes hilariously wrong when the fat black guy's cinder block goes through a manhole cover and he plummets three stories to the yard, as a visual gag with no lasting ill effects.

They immediately cut from this to a scene where the pledges are being forced to run across campus military-drill style while Mitch, Beanie and Frank yell at them from a golf cart. The (MEAN OL') Dean has security called on them then goes into some exposition with his assistant about how they exploited a loophole in the studeny by-laws (or something) that gave them temporary protection as a frat while their application is considered, therefore the house can't be forcibly vacated. It's not clear why the Dean has such a boner for ruining Mitch's shit, but he's the Mean Ol' Dean and therefore the bad guy.

This leads to a scene where the Dean meets with the president of the student council and basically tries to bribe her into revoking their status as a frat so he can close it down.

Meanwhile, Mitch, Beanie and Frank are living the high life as frat leaders. For some reason despite doing absolutely nothing, all the students refer to him as "the Godfather", like he has some awesome power because his semi-frat is apparently the coolest place to be on campus, which is a completely informed attribute. We are introduced to "Nicole" a woman with a kid who Mitch presumably had a crush on at some point but missed his chance with. Now that he's single he clearly has a rekindled boner for her (and being a more mature lady with a kid represents stability that Mitch symbolically yearns for or something). Of course she has a boyfriend, which is another antagonist to bring Mitch down alongside the mean ol' Dean.

Now that we've established about three separate plots and none of them really lead anywhere, I'll summarise the rest of the movie in brief:

* Frank decides to visit his now-estranged wife (who has kicked him out for being too wild) and for some reason she's having a ladies' night where she and her friends are taking blowjob lessons (using phallic vegetables) from Andy Dick in a shitty wig. Frank sees this through a window at an angle that makes it look like she's blowing Andy, so he busts in to beat him up, only to get the crap kicked out of him
* we get the obligatory titty scene where some young perky coeds wrestle an 89 year old man ("Old Blue" aka "My boy Blue") in a tub of KY jelly, which causes him to have a heart attack and die. This is followed with a funeral scene which goes nowhere except Frank's wife decides they're not meant for each other and suggests they get divorced
* Mitch discovers Nicole's boyfriend groping a young girl, the boyfriend then intimidates Mitch into staying quiet.  Nicole visits Mitch in his office for help with a lease (because he's a real estate lawyer, remember?). When Nicole later mentions this to her boyfriend, the boyfriend tells Nicole that Mitch was the one who groped the catering girl. Mitch has coffee with Nicole who now immediately distrusts him because of what her boyfriend told her. Mitch can't explain because Darcie appears out of nowhere in her high school uniform to let Mitch know "everything's fine, dad doesn't know". Nicole now knows Mitch is a sleaze and storms off.
* Mitch returns to the house to find it boarded up. The Dean has successfully had their status turned to "not a real frat". To prove they are, they have to meet several categories:
- academic
- debate
- athletics
- school spirit
* they smash the debate despite the Dean pulling in some hard-hitting journalist - eschewing the normal structure where each side has a "for" or "against" argument, Frank just rambles on some convoluted babble which the other side wholeheartedly agrees with.
* they pass the "academic" test which was deliberately made as hard as possible by the Dean by cheating using earpieces and having some of Mitch's lawyer buddies looking up the answers online
* despite the Dean cherry-picking the least physically capable members (including the huge fat black guy) they excel at the gymnastics which makes up the "athletic" component
* for school spirit they put on a spirited dance routine followed by Frank in a mascot outfit attempting to jump through a ring of fire, which ends terribly
* Despite excelling in most areas, the Dean includes "Blue" in the results and since he's dead and can't participate, he drags the average down, causing them to fail.
* the student coucil president accosts the Dean about him not following through on his bribe (a promise to get her into a prestigious law school)
* whoops! the Dean was recorded admitting to bribing her, so is fired/shamed/tarred/feathered

In the epilogue the frat is now moving into the Dean's former home, a huge mansion which the college apparently had no other use for. Nicole apologises to Mitch because she discovered her boyfriend really is a douche, and immediately suggests they go have sex (implied by her requesting a tour of the former frat house). Mitch gets the girl and presumably this fixes everything else horrible in his life. Frank gets divorced, probably, and continues to run the frat. Beanie whose entire plot arc was wanting to reclaim his wild youth and then doing nothing about this dissolves into the background.

I feel like this movie might have had some meaning if it wasn't some extremely thin characters who go through an uncanny sequence of ultimately pointless events. It really feels like the highlight reel or even an extended trailer for three or four completely forgettable movies all mashed together. Did the actual character development end up on the cutting room floor instead of the nearly superfluous comedy scenes?

I began to wonder what I was missing and visited the imdb page for guidance, and to see what the fans had to say on the forums and saw such glowing endorsement as "It's definitely up there with 'Norbit' or 'The Master of Disguise', that's for sure."

Despite clearly being sarcastic, I think it really captures my feelings quite eloquently.