Grade: B+ +
Cast: Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Jay Chandrasekhar, Cloris Leachman
Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
Rated R for pervasive crude and sexual content, language, nudity and substance abuse
Runtime 110 min
Release Company: Warner Bros.
http://beerfestmovie.warnerbros.com/
From the weirdo’s that brought you winners like Club Dread and Super Troopers, comes another silly, sexist, booze based, practically soft-core porn flick… Beerfest, and yes it was quite the festival of Beer. I’m a modern kind of gal; I enjoy the occasional fart, kielbasa and beer joke but when I heard this movie had all three I was first in line… at the video store. The humor is just what the kids from Broken Lizard promise… juvenile antics and some good, old fashioned, run of the mill depravity, and boy do they deliver.
When two brothers, Jan and Todd Wolfhouse (Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske) promise their Great Gam Gam (Cloris Leachman) that they will take the ashes of their late grandfather back to the motherland, Germany, they stumble upon an underground drinking club who’s competition is liken to the Oktoberfest Olympics. This movie had all the essential elements, the underdog, the villain, the down on his luck male prostitute and the lovable all star beer chugger that drowns-in-a-vat-of-beer-but-is-re-born-as-his-own-Texan-cousin-who-just-happens-to-show-up-in-the-nick-of-time-to-save-the-team-from-losing-at-the-competition.
Finally we are treated to the most uncomfortable character in the film, oh, who am I kidding, movie, the sex obsessed granny, played by the master herself, Cloris Leachman. I love Cloris Leachman, she’s been making me laugh since her Facts of Life days. (Don’t talk shit, that show was nothing until Cloris and that weird little Australian girl showed up!)
The point is it’s funny, I’m not hearing Oscar talk but if you liked any of the other Broken Lizard’s, you’ll like this one more! Cat Elrod
BOTTOM’S UP, AND BRAIN CELLS DOWN!
Directed by Jay Chandrashekar (who’s Indian by ethnicity), ‘Beerfest’ gives me reason enough to want to disown my entire race… Between this and ‘Dukes of Hazzard’, Chandrashekhar has undone everything that M. Night Shyamalan has accomplished.
A neanderthal, dimwittet, idiotic and mind-numbingly stupid excuse for a motion picture, this film is laughable rather than funny.
If Beerfest is a representation of beer aficianados and any indication of how the brew affects people, working off of the laws of opposites, I’d say this film is as good an argument for sobriety as I’ll ever see.