While watching the movie "Slackers," I was struck profoundly by a quote from one of the main characters: "This? This is great? This is a s**t heap." This providential quote speaks volumes for how ridiculously horrible this movie is.
The plot, which I hesitate to call a plot in fear of insulting the dignity of literature and film, centers around the blackmail of three cheaters. The nerdy blackmailer Ethan (Jason Schwartzman) is desperately in love with a seemingly regular girl in his physics class. The cheaters, Dave (Devon Sawa), Sam (Jason Segel) and Jeff (Michael C. Maronna), also known as the "slackers," have managed to pass through college by a series of elaborate schemes and frauds.
Unfortunately, one of the "slackers," Dave, falls in love with the girl, Angela (James King IV), whom he is supposed to be setting up with Ethan. Angela falls in love with Dave, then falls out of love with Dave, only to fall back in love with Dave. The "slackers" win (of course), and Ethan is relegated to playing the grand piano at a Denny's Restaurant.
The opening sequence has Jeff break into a moving delivery truck to steal bluebooks as Sam and Dave re-route a pack of female cross-country runners in order to make the delivery truck stop suddenly. This allows Jeff to escape from the rear of the truck as Sam, who should be studying for a midterm, pretends to have slammed into the truck on his bike.
Later, Dave sits in on Sam's midterm, copies the test into a bluebook and slips out of the testing room. A nearly perfect exam then is manufactured on one of the stolen bluebooks. Sam goes to his professor on crutches, saying he missed the exam since he was hit by a truck, and he switches the official, make-up bluebook with the A-worthy exam he brings with him. All of this action occurs in order to pass one exam.
Considering this is a far greater effort than I have ever put into a real college test, I would say that the title of the movie is the start to the absurdity of "Slackers."
This movie attempts to recreate the perverse humor of "Road Trip" or "American Pie" while utterly failing to advance a compelling story line or stay within today's incredibly liberal moral standards.
Ethan, posing as a candy striper to win the affection of philanthropic Angela, gives a bedridden prostitute's bare chest a sponge bath. A further attempt at common bonding leaves Ethan assaulting a homeless man with spinach and curse words at a food bank. Ethan's weird infatuation with Angela extends so far that he has a shrine to her in his dorm room and collects strands of her hair, which he weaves into a voodoo doll and uses to carry out inappropriate acts.
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Ethan is not the only character whose actions appall the audience. Dave, Sam and Jeff, who spend their spare time in an old Volkswagen van kept on the roof of a college building, each have peculiarities that not only reject basic tenants of human decency but also fail to illicit the humorous value their grotesqueness attempts.
Sam prefers to spend time in his dorm room locked inside a chain link enclosure he dubs "the cage" and endeavors to pick up girls by insulting them and calling them "skanks" or "whores."
Dave, while posing as a census bureau agent in order to learn more about Angela, receives oral sex from her step-mom while he pours her father a drink
Jeff, played by the older Pete from Nickelodeon's "The Adventures of Pete & Pete," is a futile attempt by the directors at creating a Tom Green figure without casting Tom Green. The most bizarre scene of the movie occurs when Jeff is shown singing to his penis, which is clothed in a sock with a smiley face drawn on it. Most disturbing is the fact that the disguised penis sings back.
These ludicrous and vile stabs at comedy only serve to mask the shallow plot, which is confused with meaningless subplots. The complete randomness and farcical writing fail to advance the purpose of entertainment, and, in my opinion, make the viewer less intelligent just from watching. In the end, the viewer ponders how an hour and 25 minutes has passed and wishes for his or her $7.50.
I would rather be forced to memorize a neurobiology textbook than see "Slackers" again.
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