Review: Stealing Harvard


 

Jason Lee is in a bit of a pickle. He and his fiancé Leslie Mann have just acquired the funds for a deposit on a house. However, a long time ago, Lee promised that if his niece (Tammy Blanchard) got into college, he’d pay for her tuition. She indeed gets into Harvard and needs almost the exact same amount of money that Lee and Mann need for the deposit on the house. What to do? He can’t bear to disappoint Mann, nor her extremely intimidating and weirdly overprotective father (and sales rep Lee’s boss), played by Dennis Farina. Nor can he be honest and tell Mann about the promise. That’d be too smart. For some stupid reason, he turns to his oddball idiot best friend Tom Green for answers (A lawn mower by trade, it seems. A really, really bad one at that). Supposedly comedic get rich quick schemes ensue (one involving horse racing and a cameo by Seymour Cassel). John C. McGinley plays a bald and uber-intense detective, Chris Penn is a high school acquaintance turned idiot crook, Richard Jenkins is a creepy and lonely widower/judge, and Megan Mullally is Lee’s extremely popular (in the wink-wink) trailer trash sister.

 

Yet another reason that Tom Green very quickly stopped being a thing, this 2002 so-called comedy from director Bruce McCulloch (the lame SNL flick “Superstar”) and screenwriter Peter Tolan (“Analyse This”, “America’s Sweethearts”) is a terrible waste of a good supporting cast and decent leading man Jason Lee. Green’s awful and weird as usual, but he’s not the problem here. In fact, he gets the film’s only good line: ‘Have you heard of insurance? It’s called insurance’. Seriously, what does that even mean? It’s so stupid it’s brilliant. The rest of the film is just stupid.

 

The problem is the usual suspect: The script just isn’t funny for the most part. This is made obvious when Dennis Farina in drag spooning with Richard Jenkins fails to get a laugh. Leslie Mann steals it as Lee’s emotionally unstable girlfriend- she’s insane and at the very least kinda interesting. Like Mann, a bald John C. McGinley is better than the film. I bet he’s a helluva nice guy in real life, but boy is he an intimidating presence on screen. It’s a waste of time, and it contains without question the lamest conclusion of any film I’ve seen in months.

 

No, this just isn’t good enough at all. I won’t deny there are a few chuckles here and there, but even with Green in the cast, this should’ve been a lot better. Why did so many talented people (and Tom Green) sign on for this? Lame, but at least there aren’t any shit weasels in it, I suppose.

 

Rating: D+

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