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Jason “Igby” Slocumb, Jr. (Kieran Culkin) is first seen with his brother Oliver (Ryan Phillipe) killing their mother Mimi (Susan Sarandon). Then, we have over 90 minutes of boredom and torture as we see the life of Igby and those around. We don’t really get to know any of them. The character development makes Old School seem like it had deep and thoughtful characters. About all we know about characters are their relationships with others, and that’s it. Even with Igby, the main character, we don’t know anything about, except that he’s a misfit. Why? There’s no motives behind anything anyone does, and things just “happen” without explanation. And that’s not the worst of it.
IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE A COMEDY, BUT I DIDN’T LAUGH AT ALL! Even though it’s billed as a dramedy, it still needs laughs in it! Going back to The Royal Tenenbaums, that was a dramedy also, but even in its ensemble, we got to know and care about the characters, and I LAUGHED! Burr Steers, director and writer, must have been thinking that this was the easy way out. Manipulate the audience into thinking that this is good, even though it has no laughs for a comedy and no poignancy for a drama. A drama has to be touching, at least a little, to be effective, but in Steers’ script, it made me not feel for the characters, so I couldn’t feel anything at the climax.
Only Amanda Peet and Jeff Goldblum were able to work with this weak movie. Here’s a good analogy for this movie: if, during the Inquisition, you were accused of being a heretic and were put on The Rack, where all of your joints would come out of their sockets, that’s this movie. It’s completely disjointed: we can’t tell who’s sleeping with whom, who is whose parents, etc. I HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON! Two things make this movie semi-worthwhile: Peet and Goldblum’s acting and Peet’s nude scene (her second!). Other than that, stay away like the plague, which is what you’ll wish you’d infected with as your watching this, so you can be put out of your torture.
Rated R for language, sexuality and drug content.
Review Date: April 12, 2003