Slackers: Lifeless on Campus

By Teddy Durgin
tedfilm@aol.com

The only lingering fascination I have with the new movie Slackers is how did first-time director Dewey Nicks convince Cameron Diaz and Gina Gershon to make cameo appearances in this mess of a would-be, gross-out teen comedy? What photographic evidence did he compile on them? Where has he stashed the video or audio version of whatever misdeed he caught them doing? Did they get all of the copies or will he be forcing them to embarrass themselves in future bad movies?

OK, I also wonder how the one guy managed to transform his penis into a sock puppet and make it talk. But I really don't want to think about that scene anymore.

I found myself watching Slackers wishing for it to get better. The filmmakers had some good ideas. They created some interesting characters and situations. And they got many of the little details of college life--the often overbearing teachers' assistants, the individualized dorm rooms, the varying personality types--just right. But much of what they do right is ruined quite often by a need to toss in throwaway gross jokes that involve everything from flatulence and stepping in dog doo-doo to masturbation and the aforementioned penis puppetry.

The film follows three college never-do-wells (Devon Sawa, Jason Segel, and Michael C. Maronna) who have cheated their way through years of classes and are now on the verge of graduating. However, class nerd Ethan (Jason Schwartzman of Rushmore) catches the trio in the act and blackmails them into helping him get a date with beautiful co-ed, Angela (played by James King ... to those of you who don't page through Maxim on a monthly basis, James is a girl).

Slackers has two things going right for it. First, Nicks and screenwriter David Steinberg do a good job making us believe the three title slackers are a true team that have been together for some time. Sawa, Segel (who played the sensitive drummer on the great Freaks and Geeks TV series), and Maronna have a nice, easy-going chemistry. Second, the film avoids the clichi of having the nerd be this lovable, awkward wounded heart. Ethan is one creepy, nasty, completely unlovable guy. At best, he is a social pariah. At worst, he is a stalker. Every college campus has at least a dozen of them. To any hot college girls reading this ... first of all, my e-mail address is at the top. Second, avoid these kinds of guys at all costs. What kind? The kind who stare too long at you, stand too close to you, breathe too hard on you. Don't make eye contact with them. Don't even let them in your air space.

Schwartzman has got the creepy college stalker guy down to a science in this film, from the ill-fitting backpack to the creepy unibrow to the messed-up vocal patterns. The only problem is, Ethan is a little too creepy. The movie tries to make him both weird and funny (though thankfully not endearing), but it isn't quite sure how or why he is funny. After a while, you stop admiring what Schwartzman is doing in the role and begin wondering why haven't the other characters just not beat the living daylights out of him. Similarly, Nicks throws in some of the oddest musical montages you will ever see in a film. But again they're weird, but not really funny. Even worse, they feel like filler.

Slackers has odd rhythms. The film just doesn't work. It never quite figures out what it wants to be. Because Sawa's Dave is the best-looking of the three slackers, he naturally must fall in love with Angela, even as he tries to hook her up with Ethan to save him and his friends' tails. The scenes between Dave and Angela seem lifted from another, more innocent movie, while the three slackers' various schemes seem part of a much nastier and far more interesting dark comedy that could have been quite cool.

Ultimately, the movie went where I feared it would go, the cinematic equivalent of the group hug where the guys who spent years taking great glee cheating and scheming have to see the error of the ways, come clean, and turn themselves into do-gooder chumps. It reminded of those jive Growing Pains episodes where Kirk Cameron always came up with those clever plans to stay out late or pass the big exam or get the innocent girl in the backseat only to get caught by Mom or Dad and be taught a lesson. Just once, I'd like to see a comedy about young Buellers doing bad and getting away scot-free. No moral. No lame
"I'm-changing-my-ways" speech.

Never mind that Slackers then cops out at the very end, showing that the characters really didn't learn anything.

You can't have it both ways, guys!

Finally, let me rant about this movie's title. Some may think this to be the James Cameron version of Richard Linklater's legendary indie film, Slacker. It's not. Far from it. I'm not even sure Sawa, Segel, and Maronna's characters are technically slackers. Their cheating schemes are elaborate and require much in the way of thought, planning, and execution. Furthermore, the trio has the ability to knock over delivery trucks, tap into fellow students' email, and even shut down the campus' entire power grid at will. True slackers would never get off the sofa to turn on their dorm room lights.

Slackers is more about cheating and telling lies. To that end, it should have called Cheaters or Liars.

Or, better yet, Failures.

Slackers is rated R for language, drug use, brief nudity, and
use of a vibrator with the ugly nerd from those Ameritrade
commercials nearby. Diaz and Gershon are in the film for about
30 seconds, just long enough to make out with a couple of the
lead characters in dream sequences. Dewey Nicks, I wanna see
those pictures!