Review of "American Pie"
This slice of high-school life from first-time feature filmmakers
director Paul Weitz and his brother, producer Chris Weitz, falls flat on its
half-baked premise. Neither teen nor adult audiences should waste their time
and money on this cliche-laden comedy in which four high school buddies make
a pact to see who will be the first one laid before school ends.
Hapless Jim (Jason Biggs) can't score with anyone; Oz, the good-looking jock, (Chris Klein) isn't sure with whom he wants to go to bed, Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) plots when he'll score, and the intellectual Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) sits back and waits to do so.
Without a hint of ethnicity among them -- Jewish or otherwise -- these white-bread, testosterone-hyped characters exist in a vacuum.
"Third base is like warm apple pie" is advice that Jim takes to heart. And it's not long before we get to see -- only too graphically -- exactly what this means. On the heels of that episode come the predictable bathroom humor and semen-drinking scenes, which we've seen before and with greater originality in "There's Something About Mary."
Generally, the girls are awarded more engaging dialogue than their male counterparts as in one scene when a college girl tells Oz, "You don't have to spout off cheese ball lines."
That same suggestion might be given to Adam Herz, the film's neophyte screenwriter. The Weitz team is obsessed with showing high school girls' over-developed, plastic-looking breasts -- sometimes bare and other times bulging or hanging out of their low-cut, revealing clothes. As one of the guys remarks during a typical beer-guzzling party scene: "So much cleavage." Indeed. The film's raunchy dialogue and sexual overtures tire in short order.
Don't expect a '90s version of "Porky's," "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" or any hint of the unforgettable heart and humor that made "Diner" and "The Graduate" timeless coming-of-age classics.
However, the Weitzes pay shameless homage to Mike Nichols' film in a scene where Finch is seduced by the sexy mom (Jennifer Coolidge) of his party pal Stifler (Seann W. Scott). "The Graduate" theme song, Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs. Robinson, plays as the two do the wild thing on the pool table.
The ensemble cast, mostly cardboard caricatures, includes Mena Suvari as the beautiful songster Heather, Alyson Hannigan as a nerdy band member, Shannon Elizabeth playing the sexy Nadia, and Chris Owens as the falsely confident, acne-faced Sherman.
Even Natasha Lyonne, who was delightful in "Slums of Beverly Hills," can't do much with Jessica, a character whose sexual counsel (for a price) makes her decidedly unsympathetic. It's unclear what drives this feminine pseudo-sage, intended as the stand-in for the adults who are seen as mere rubes.
Meanwhile, the comedic talents of Eugene Levy are wasted in his over-the-top portrayal of Jim's geek of a dad. Are we to assume he's Jewish based on a throwaway line about a brother named Mort?
Finally, the characters' epiphanies (read: life's lessons) are as prosaic as the initial dilemmas. One of film's rare glimpses of genuine sentiment arrives too late. It's Kevin's girlfriend Vicky (Tara Reid) who comes to understand that sex, like life, sometimes fails to meet one's expectations. Kind of like "American Pie."
Jane Lieberman is a freelance writer who lives in Los Angeles and proudly identifies herself as Jewish.
"American Pie" is a Universal Pictures release rated R for strong sexuality, crude sexual dialogue, language and drinking, all involving teens. 0 matzoh balls
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