Movie Review by Nigel A. Messenger
Starring: Devon Sawa, Jason Schwartzman, James King, Michael Maronna, Laura Prepon
Director: Dewey Nicks
Dave (Devon Sawa) and his two college roommates are ‘slacker’, people who get through college doing as little work as possible and running scams to get what they want, including grades. Everything goes their way until Ethan (Jason Schwartzman), an obnoxious nerd with absolutely no class, catches them and threatens to expose them unless they help him get a date with the gorgeous Angela (James King) whom he has been fantasising about but doesn’t stand a chance with. Dave and his friends agree to the deal but then Dave falls for Angela and she falls for him so Ethan tells Angela about the deal they have made. Dave must now come up with a plan to get Angela back and to get rid of psycho Ethan.
SLACKERS is a teen comedy in the vein of AMERICAN PIE, which tries its hardest to be outrageous and goes part of the way at least in succeeding. There is no real suspense in the storyline because we all know who the good guys are and who will end up with the girl, but there are some genuinely funny moments. Angela played by James King (aka Jamie King) yes this James is a female, is very attractive and plays her part well, and everyone from Devon Sawa to the psycho Ethan played by Jason Schwartzman seems to fit right in to their roles. There are some nice moments from Angela’s roommate Reanna played by Laura Prepon who thinks nothing of continuing to masturbate with a vibrator when a total stranger walks into the room and starts talking to her!
All in all SLACKERS is quite a good laugh but it just doesn’t have that little something extra that made the AMERICAN PIE movies the hits that they are. It could be that the direction from first time feature director Dewey Nicks could have been just a little bit tighter. It’s just too laid back to get you excited, which is a shame because you feel like you want to laugh a lot more than you actually do.
