Dead Man on Campus Review
by Jamie Peck (jpeck1 AT gl DOT umbc DOT edu)August 14th, 1998
DEAD MAN ON CAMPUS
Reviewed by Jamie Peck
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rating: *** (out of ****)
Paramount / 1:32 / 1998 / R (language, muted violence, sexual humor, drug use, brief nudity)
Cast: Tom Everett Scott; Mark-Paul Gosselaar; Lochlyn Munro; Poppy Montgomery; Randy Pearlstein; Corey Page; Allyson Hannigan; Mari Morrow Director: Alan Cohn
Screenplay: Michael Traeger; Mike White
------------------------------------------------------------------------ If you're a college student who prefers a nice beer-and-bong bash over last-minute cramming for your calculus test, "Dead Man on Campus" might be just the film to clear the haze from your head. Amongst the canny pleasures of this entertaining summer surprise, a message is lightly pounded out that could cause a few lost students to mend their ways -- provided, of course, that they see the movie's moral through the sometimes-dark, sometimes-lowbrow and often very funny comedy surrounding it. Sure, "Dead Man on Campus" has its share of assorted flaws, but give Michael Traeger and Mike White's fairly clever screenplay and the unbelievably lively cast credit for allowing you to happily overlook them. Believe it or not, this youth-oriented, MTV-produced flick actually delivers the goods.
The movie spins its story around a widely-known urban legend of sorts -- should your roommate kill himself during the semester, you'll get automatic straight-As for the grief and trauma. This "dead man's clause" (as it's called here) is spelled out in the charter -- yeah, right -- of the prestigious Daleman University, and it becomes the only way for mismatched freshmen dormies Josh (Tom Everett Scott), a diligent straight-arrow on scholarship, and Cooper (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), a blue-blooded, careless party boy, to stay in school once the former is lead astray by the latter. They begin a campus-wide search for the most suicidal person at Daleman, planning to move him in and push him over the edge as soon as possible. You know, so his death won't entirely be in vain.
"Dead Man" takes about half of its 92-minute running time before Josh and Cooper narrow their focus to a trio of fragile students and start the auditioning process. In a lesser film, waiting around for this to happen might have been painful postponement, but Scott and Gosselaar turn their typical odd couple pairing into something special for the stretch. Scott, whose ultra-charismatic work in "That Thing You Do!" is still one of this decade's most engaging debuts, is a joy to watch, gleaming with appeal in every scene. On the other hand, "Dead Man on Campus" could very well be Gosselaar's breakthrough. Here, he proves his acting chops go beyond his "Saved by the Bell" upbringing, and has a lot of fun with the debonair, jaunty Cooper. Love how he uses a martini shaker as a subtle comedic prop.
That's not to say the set-up couldn't have been prodded along at a faster clip, but, thanks to the antics of this harried pair, it is quite amusing. The following passages are even better, largely because of the potentially self-destructive candidates whom Josh and Cooper get to know and hate. Each one is a basket case in their own right, but newcomer Lochlyn Munro's perpetually-horny frat boy Cliff is easily the best -- and the scariest -- of the bunch. Munro's work here is one of those rare, everything-and-the-kitchen-sink performances that never grates, gets tired or works against him; his couch-humping scene and reaction when a lady friend catches her hair on fire are coarse delights, probably worth the price of admission alone.
The often pitch-black humor unfortunately gives way to a too-pat finale that cries out for a fiendish rewrite; it's nice, but niceness is one area this movie should have steered clear of. A romantic subplot between Josh and a pretty coed (Poppy Montgomery) provides the film with one of its most memorable moments -- repeated dialogue when Scott returns from an all-night bedroom romp -- but never really goes anywhere despite the two actors' sweet chemistry. Yet even miscellaneous imperfection is forgivable when the movie in question provides a good time, and such is the silly case here. "Dead Man on Campus" is by no means a classic or even remotely classy, but as crude little college flicks go, it pulls a solid grade-point-average without committing many crimes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ © 1998 Jamie Peck
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"My guess is that African-Americans will be offended by the movie, and whites will be embarrassed. The movie will bring us all together, I imagine, in paralyzing boredom." -- Roger Ebert on "B.A.P.S."
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