Before the box-office success of Varsity Blues (1999) and the critical acclaim of Election (1999), the MTV cable channel created this raunchy campus comedy, the debut feature from MTV Films, the network's motion-picture production banner. Josh Miller (Tom Everett Scott) is a studious and responsible pre-med student entering college as a freshman. His wild, hard-partying roommate, Cooper Frederickson (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), on the other hand, is a spoiled rich kid who never studies and spends his
time getting drunk and ogling coeds. Before long, Cooper's fun-filled lifestyle has corrupted Josh, and both are on the verge of flunking out of school. That's when they discover a little-used codicil in the college's charter stating that any student whose roommate commits suicide will automatically receive straight A's. Since their third roommate has moved in with his girlfriend, Josh and Cooper set about recruiting the most depressed, suicidal classmate they can find. The prime candidate: Cliff (Lochlyn Munro), a mentally unbalanced wild man. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
As a satire of new-style collegiate types, this MTV production actually evinces a few germs of rancid wit. If only the laborious high-concept plot had been deep-sixed -- and, along with it, the cynically blah heroes.
It is a movie whose appeal will diminish in direct proportion to the number of years it has been since you were a sexually-frustrated, pimply-faced undergrad.
This limp 1998 comedy tries hard to be both irreverent and ethical by suggesting that deceit motivated by self-interest is OK as long as no one gets hurt.
The trouble is that it's not remotely funny enough not to seem merely strained, silly and even disgusting in its ultimate endorsement of conning your way into academic survival.
All three would-be suicides are over the top and fun to watch. Too bad the film they're in seems to have been at least partly written and directed by Beavis and Butt-head.
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