21 and Over is obviously an attempt by the writer/directors (Jon Lucas and Scott Moore) to repeat the success they had with the popular gross-out comedy franchise, The Hangover. Unfortunately it massively misses the mark.
Slightly estranged friends from high school, Miller and Casey, plan to surprise the third member of their old gang, Jeff Chong on the day of his 21st birthday, with a debauched night-out. Unfortunately he has an important med-school interview the next morning. Regardless, everyone gets dangerously drunk and they do a series of horrible things in a spectacularly unfunny way.
Simply put, this is The Hangover with students in it, but lacking the spark of the original. A telling moment is when then heroes of our film have to make their way to the top floor of a party due to some forced narrative point. Thus, the bizarre conceit of a ’party-tower’ is introduced, in which to move up each floor, you have to win a drinking game; beer pong, downing contests, etc. It is just clichés of student nightlife, unimaginatively strung together.
I felt myself anticipating each gag minutes before it was delivered as all the jokes are in the trailer. Seriously, just go onto Youtube now to see all the best parts; you’ll be saving 90 minutes of your life, and won’t be paying to see it and therefore encouraging the film studio to make a sequel, which would be a tragedy. As it is sold as an irreverent and rowdy boys comedy, the overt sexism and undercurrent of homophobia in this film did not much surprise me. What really caught me off guard was the blatant racism that permeates the entire dialogue. Every single character is racially profiled by the protagonists and then proceeds to perform to their blown-up stereotype.
As The Inbetweeners Movie proved, a good ‘lads-get-drunk’ gross-out comedy is entirely possible. Yet, 21 and Over fails. I cringed throughout the film, not because the humour was so daring, but because I could not believe someone thought it was a good idea to make this film.