Movie Review: Old School

Director: Todd Phillips
Year of Release: 2003
Genre: Comedy
Run Time: 92mins

When Mitch Martin (Luke Wilson) comes home early from a boring conference he finds that his girlfriend, Heidi (Juliette Lewis) is cheating on him. As he looks to rebuild his life his friends Frank & Beanie (Will Ferrell & Vince Vaughn) are there to help him out who are themselves are disenchanted with life. He finds a new house not far from the University where Mitch hopes to rebuild his life. What the didn’t expect was that the Dean of the University (Jeremy Piven) turns out to be a kid they picked on at school. He gleefully announces that the house Mitch just bought is now University property and they are to be evicted. So in a battle to keep the house Beanie turns Mitch’s new place into a fraternity and all hell breaks loose.

The movie is a particular favourite of mine. Although not on a par with some of my all time favourite comedies it is definitely a movie I can watch more than once. There are some wonderful one liners and gags that still make me laugh. I must also point out that while I’m not a fan of every movie Will Ferrell is in, he is very funny in this one. Luke Wilson is also very good in this movie but personally I feel Vince Vaughn steels the show on this one. The acting all round is pleasing for a modern comedy where it’s more visual than quick wit.

There isn’t really much of a story, it’s more of a journey through a month of Mitch’s life. In this month he manages to find himself and reboot his life but not in the way he was thinking and I like that. Rather than try and be complex and funny it just goes for the simple stuff which works well. It doesn’t try to be something it isn’t and is very funny in doing so.

Rating: 3.5/5