Here's AICN regular L.A. Cat Thief JOHN ROBIE with his look at AMERICAN PIE... I'd say something clever, but I just saw the first reel of BRANNIGAN and my brain is playing John Wayne lines in a loop. So... I'll just get right to it...
Stealing the Cinerama Dome out in Los Angeles might be wee bit tougher than I thought. It was to be my biggest heist. I was all set to plunk that bitch right into my back yard. I have a plan to dash the theatre away in the middle of the night, but I promise I won't do it until the current crop of awesome movies has finished its run. Seeing Lawrence of Arabia on a screen that's measured in the hundreds of feet is about as close to cinematic bliss as I can imagine. You can't believe how big Quinn's schnoze looks.
And that's my pathetic segue...cinematic bliss, get it...to talking about the funniest comedy of the year. Teen movies, at this fleeting moment in history, are absolutely wretched. They're movie-by-comitte shitfests often backed by the spikey horned demon that is MTV, absolutely devoid of charm or heart. Gutter junk like She's All that or Varsity Blues or Jawbreaker(I konw same writer/director but still utter crap) or that Drew Barrymore thing suck hard. Light, fun entertainment is fine. Crafted by committe flicks that ooze a hungry desire to be cool and pander for the buck of a fourteen year old are evil.
American Pie isn't that. It's not that at all. Yeah cynics, it's a movie with teens. But it sure ain't one of these pathetic movie by marketting study jobs. American Pie is a bunch of actors you've probably never seen following a real simple idea and being nasty and funny as hell in the process. Why's it different? The thing has real heart. None of this gooey fake sentimentality "Oh I feel like the Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman" garbage. There's no "let's win the big game" pap here. No references to the cool band of the moment---am I the only one who goes into violent convulsions when that fucking Drew-Barrymore-goes-back-to-high-school trailer comes on and that kid goes "I heard she dated the drummer from Big Bad Voodoo Daddies", some asshole actually wrote that? Christ Hollywood is dumb...Nope, American Pie is grounded by a group of very good characters and there isn't an ounce of cynicism or pretention to be found in the proceedings. It's good plain fun. Dare I say, it even could be a kid brother to 80s greatness like Better Off Dead or 16 Candles. And dipshits, Satyajit Ray and John Ford are two of my favorite directors, so cut the crap when you say that I got no base of what's good when I give my opinions...on wit' da review.
This is a teen sex comedy. I can hear the groans already, I know. But snobs with your likes-of-Fassbiner-clogged (I ain't knockin' him) eyes and young doubters with your (understandable) disenchantment wait a sec; all this movie wants to be is funny, it isn't crafted to appeal to folks with pop-culture references and it isn't a vehicle for a stupid televison star. It doesn't ever try to be more than a fun as hell teen sex comedy. Here's the characters, they're funny, we hope you laugh--that's the attitude of the movie, and it's wonderful. The timing is impecable not just for a teen comedy but for ANY comedy. The mannerisms of the characters, the little moments and movements, they all work. Even the kid who plays the asshole here is great.
This thing was directed by one of the Weitz brothers. Those guys wrote Antz, a great flick with a great script that had more than a few moments that harkened back to Woody Allen's writing when he was in his prime. They've proven they know good comedic material. The basic story of American Pie sounds really lame; four buddies have to lose their virginity by prom. The writing is way, way more clever than you'd expect. Of course a great script is easily ruined by crap actors. Here the actors are awesome. Jason Biggs, the main kid, is incredible. Hell all the kids are good, especially the ones playing Oz and the one playing Finch...and the one playing the school asshole and all the rest.
This is a terrific cast. Eugene Levy, wow, how awesome he's in this. He probably flinched a little bit when he first read the script, but it's so great that he's part of American Pie. He just puts it over the top. You hardly ever see an actor do so many little things with what amounts to a fairly small part and be so damn funny doing them.
No scenes will be spoken of here, they're all better left unsaid. Yep, some are gross. Real gross. A lot of the laughs, though, come from what are usually throwaway lines. These actors got their parts nailed down, and the delivery sells the movie. There's only one scene that borders on the cheeseball, a big proclimation of the pact between the four mains, but its more than forgiveable. Jason Biggs, who plays Jimmy, is incredible. The kid's facial expressions are priceless, his timing is always perfect, and from about two seconds into the very first scene of the movie he hooks you in. The other three kids are good as hell too. There's a big doofus jock named Oz who has a heart bigger than his bicep (it doesn't come off as cheesy), there's a kid named Finch who fashions himself a cognac drinking highbrow, there's another kid who is basically a pretty boy...they're all good, they're all build up great, they'll all full of personality and life and NO ONE EVER WHINES! There's one quick scene where they kinda whine, the weakest part of the movie, actually, but the rest of it is balls out fun. Seriously, this is the kind of thing where a five years from now all these actors will have established themselves. Just like Fast Times.
There's nudity. Wow, good nudity. American Pie can stand beside the works of Savage Steve and Hughes. It really can. Fun as hell man, fun as hell. And thank God the damn thing isn't set in L.A., I'm so tired of that shit. And it's got the best not-trying-to-be-edgy-or-cool use of the internet in any movie yet.
