Slackers Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)January 31st, 2002
SLACKERS
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Dave (Devon Sawa, "Final Destination"), Sam (Jason Segel, TV's "Freaks and Geeks") and Jeff (Michael C. Maronna, "Home Alone") spend all their mental energy in college coming up with elaborate schemes to cheat on tests. When Dave attends a midterm for a class he doesn't take in order to copy the questions, he inadvertently takes the seat of a geeky stalker, the self-proclaimed 'Cool Ethan' (Jason Schwartzman, "Rushmore"), beside stalkee Angela (James King, "Pearl Harbor"). Dave slips Angela his number, blowing his cover and enabling Ethan to blackmail the threesome for a date with his dream girl in "Slackers."
With a sorry title that's not only misrepresentative but will continually get be confused with Richard Linklater's 1991 feature, "Slackers" may draw interest due to the first appearance of Jason Schwartzman since his stunning "Rushmore" debut. Unfortunately, although he still exhibits considerable talent, Schwartzman's intensely creepy character is more likely to elicit ill will than entertainment.
Director Dewey Nicks, whose major claim to fame is the Ameritrade television commercial campaign (as is star Maronna's), starts off his film promisingly enough. Working with a script by David H. Steinberg ("American Pie 2"), Nicks introduces his three protagonists executing the beginning of their latest elaborate plan. As Dave videotapes jogging college women into and out of the path of a truck delivering blue books, Jeff does the steal and Sam, this endeavor's beneficiary, gets his test postponement by staging a bicycle accident with said truck. A cute little fantasy ditty about the trio's friendship features a corny song and some outrageous tableaux.
After Dave tangles with Ethan, the real sickness settles in. Angela's roomie Reanna (Laura Prepon, TV's "That 70's Show") is upset that she's just 2 points from the skank rating in a magazine quiz, which she proves by masturbating while strange men are in her room. After coaching from Dave's team, Ethan tries to get close to Angela by joining her nursing home volunteers where he gets to give the topless Mrs. Van Graaf (busty 50's bombshell Mamie Van Doren), a self professed whore, a sponge bath ('Nice hands' she purrs, 'Nice rack' he replies). Ethan rants about loving and hating Angela while wearing her underwear on his head before a shrine which includes a voodoo doll made of her hair. A random cutaway to Jeff, who protests too much about being gay, shows his talent for duetting to 'We'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain' with a sock puppet erected on his manhood.
The plot and characters are at the mercy of the next gross-out joke and the film spirals wildly out of control after its initial twenty minutes. "Slackers" begins to make "Scary Movie" look tasteful after a while, to its detriment rather than any subversive spirit it may have been going for. In a small role as Angela's stepmom and a throwaway fantasy cameo, Leigh Taylor Young and Cameron Diaz make one wonder if there's more to the blackmail angle than meets the eye.
Schwartzman portrays the icky Ethan as a cross between the baby-man issuings of Adam Sandler and the manic physical looniness of Jack Black. His musical background gets a goofy workout (adding to the Sandler/Black comparison), but overall, one can only question his taste in choosing this role. It's one of the most inauspicious followups in movie history, besmirching his debut by recalling Max Fisher's geeky, obnoxious stalker tendencies without any of Max Fisher's appeal.
The film has cheesy production values, with cinematography that's alternately murky and out of focus (by Emmy and Independent Spirit nominated (!) director of photography James Bagdonas ("American Heart")).
"Slackers" should be quickly sent packing.
D
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