Slackers (2002)

Since the inception of the VCR, Hollywood has thrived off commercialized, visually appealing, quick-money movies designed to suck in audiences while regurgitating the same plots and characters over and over. It has left any notion of artistic merit in maybe one or two films a year. Slackers if not one of these films, yet comes awfully close.

Three cheaters, while attempting one of their last stunts, slip up and end up at the mercy of a neurotic stalker. He blackmails them to help him win over a girl, yet one of the cheaters falls in love and all hell breaks loose.

Alright, the plot is simple enough and far from original, yet still presents themes of human conflict that outweigh most other teen/college movie out there, which have ridiculous plots about a relationship trying to be amended while some kid skates in the background. The character development is far above par as well, Shwartzman in particular, creating an odd mixture of realism against the background of gross-out slapstick. These things are all fine and good, and most films have comparable attributes, so what makes this film special?

This is a movie from the heart. You can tell this at first glance from the fact that it's rated R; they weren't trying to make money, they were making a film how they wanted to. You can tell every actor and actress contributes their own personal flair to the film, which sometimes takes away from the smoothness and clarity present in well-directed movies. They were making this film and having fun while they were doing it, and when you can see that on screen you get a feeling like you're watching something worthwhile rather then something designed to pull at your wallet like a Prague gypsy. Don't be too quick to criticize the outlandish aspects of this film either, as they may be crude and cheap, they're also honest and precise. Similar to Dirty Work, it has a straightforward approach to understanding what a movie should be.

This film is often misunderstood because of these reasons as it doesn't conform to the Hollywood standard of what a college comedy should be, however wacky. It provides something distinctly new to the genre and should be praised for its own artistic merit. Even if you don't like the sense of humor, the plot, the actors, or even the genre, you can still appreciate and respect it for what it brings.

Fmovies: Although not the best comedy in recent memory, it's not the worst either. After starting out the year with the dreadful "Orange County", this one has something worse to compare it to. In "Slackers" there are some funny laugh-out-loud moments, even if they are kind of distasteful. First time director Dewey Nicks keeps the pace rolling with this predictable, yet amusing story. As long as you're not going in expecting a comedy masterpiece, you'll probably have a good time. This one follows the gross-out trend that "American Pie" helped to re-launch. Devon Sawa ("Final Destination") and James King ("Pearl Harbor") make a cute couple being torn apart by the purposely annoying and obsessed Jason Schwartzman ("Rushmore"). Throw in a typical "bet about the girl - she finds out and gets mad" plot and supposedly you'll get a successful teen movie. But wasn't this spoofed already? The characters are fairly amusing, but it's pretty hard to pull of a comedy that's funny during its entire length, especially when there's not a lot of new ideas to offer. After the 5th title change, the unoriginally named "Slackers" was chosen and scripted by "American Pie 2" writer David H. Steinberg. While it breaks no new ground and has a pretty cheesy ending, the movie was made for teens and will probably do well with them. If you fit the demographic or just enjoy gross-out humor, go check it out. Otherwise, don't saw I didn't warn you!

I don't know why so many people disliked I found it really entertaining even though it's not the funnest movie in the world it still has a really great story and the acting by both James King and Devon Sawa is great please go out and rent this movie again you will end up liking this movie you will end up liking it.

Slackers fmovies. Love, hate, fun, blackmail, cheating, slacking, faking, should be good huh ?! Well, once again, WRONG. It's another cheap story, with no action, low humor and some collage underlife. Waste your money on something else, this sucks. I'm sorry for the casting, maybe in some other screenplay they would be better...

When "Slackers" was originally released in theaters, it was given a very low rating. This is difficult to understand, when it turned out to be a very creative movie. The characters are easy to enjoy, as the antics of Dave (Devon Sawa), Sam (Jason Segel), and Jeff (Michael Maronna) make them out to be some sort of wild "A-Team", with a variety of special skills. Ethan's (Jason Schwartzman) obsession over Angela (James King) is more dark than it is comical, and is a fairly good example of a not so rare obsession which is found in young men in everyday life. What I found to be most unique about the movie were the day-dream/imagination sequences, in which there is a good look into the minds of the characters. Although their thoughts are rather bizarre, I think real-people can make a connection when comparing it to their own times of letting their imagination stretch and be non-sensical. My favorite scene has to be the swimming scene between Dave and Angela at night in the school pool. It was beautifully filmed, and combined with the appropriate music, it is a very strong film sequence that really drew me in. Overall, I am glad that I took the time to watch this movie, as I regard it highly as a favorite of mine after now having seen it.

This film looked promising but it was actually pretty bad. The premise was O.K, but the plot itself was terrible. The actors tried their best with limited material, but they could not rise above the mean spiritedness of this tacky college film. Jason Schwartzman was once again immensely irritating - even more so than in Rushmore, the rest of the cast were quite non-eventful. Scenes that should have been fun turned out to be off-putting & incredibly juvenile. Tries to be a Road Trip/American Pie but fails dismally on all levels. A total waste of everyone's time.