Beerfest

beerfestrating-5.0I went into the film with somewhat low expectations. I am a huge fan of Super Troopers and enjoyed Club Dread, seeing them both in the theaters, and also enjoyed Broken Lizard's first film, Puddle Cruiser, though it was somewhat light on the kind of humor that they'd become known for. Upon rewatching it in its extended cut, Club Dread turned out to be a much better, funnier movie than it was in its theatrical version, but none of that made me much more hopeful of how good Beerfest would be, given its constant appearance as beer-soaked frat comedy. I was most decidedly wrong.

Broken Lizard is easily at the top of its game and Beerfest is the proof. Those who would speak ill of the movie are either soulless or stupid, because the comedy is brilliant in its simplicity and silliness. It's nothing more than it appears or aspires to be and it does what it sets out to do very well: make very vulgar and somewhat banal jokes at a regular intervals and keeps the audience laughing, hard, for the whole length of the movie.

The plot is simple and straightforward. It's the standard plot to the average feel-good sports movie: brothers, dishonored, compete (with the help of their wacky friends) to show the better-organized and trained champions that they can do one better. Except, in this case, it's a series of beer-related drinking games. And the dishonor is much more complex and, therefore, funnier.

But you couldn't possibly find a better comedy that involves excessive drinking, male prostitution, and animal masturbation. And definitely not handled without being totally stupid and vulgar, in the American Pie way that has infected the consciousness of America and lead people to believe that dumb = funny.

And this movie may be occassionally dumb, but that isn't the crux of its comedy. Its comedy is in its oblivious lack of knowing how dumb it is or in its crass disregard for convention. Or, occassionally, it's just vulgar enough to have you guffaw.

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