BEERFEST
Director: Jay Chandrasekhar Stars: Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Jurgen Prochnow, Eric Christian Olsen, Mo'Nique, M C Gainey, Ralf Moeller, Cloris Leachman, Donald Sutherland, Willie Nelson
Reviewed by GREG KING
Beerfest is yet another deliberately dumb and low brow comedy from Broken Lizard, the writing/directing team that previously gave us the gross-out humour of Supertroopers and the dreadful parody of teen slasher films with Club Dread.
After the death of their beloved grandfather (an uncredited cameo from Donald Sutherland), Jan and Todd Wolfhouse (Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske) agree to take his ashes back to Munich during Octoberfest and spread them over some secret hallowed family ground. But in Munich they are introduced to Beerfest, a type of underground drinking Olympics that runs concurrent with the better known Octoberfest celebrations. The siblings also learn of a shameful family secret from the past, and of a stolen beer recipe. The brothers decide that the only way to defend their family’s honour is to tackle the Germans at their own game, and beat them in next year’s Beerfest.
Thus begins twelve months of rigorous training, in which they learn to drink copious amounts of beer and perfect their skills in various obscure drinking games. They also enlist the help of some former college friends and serious drinking companions to help them. Landfill (Kevin Heffernan) is able to consume prodigious amounts of food and drink in a single sitting. Steve Finklestein (Steve Lemme) is a college professor with a strange fascination with toads, while Barry (played by director Jay Chandrasekhar himself) has fallen on hard times and now plies his sleazy trade as a man whore on the back alleys of town.
Director Jay Chandrasekhar (the recent big screen remake of The Dukes Of Hazzard, etc) and his usual collaborators employ a free-wheeling approach in which they try just about anything for laughs, regardless of whether it actually works or not. The team has been working together for years, and they have developed an easy-going affinity that allows them to improvise on screen. Several of the Broken Lizard team also play dual roles throughout the film, although they are largely unrecognisable in their lesser parts.
The boys obviously think that having a veteran actress of Cloris Leachman’s stature uttering foul language is terribly hilarious. Jurgen Prochnow shows that he is a good sport with his appearance here as the villain of the piece, and there is one scene, late in the movie, that includes an in-joke at the expense of his best known movie Das Boot. There is also plenty of gratuitous nudity and sexual innuendo and toilet humour throughout.
Although the film has snuck into cinemas without any media previews, there is certainly a ready made audience for this kind of low brow humour, which caters to the lowest common denominator. Beerfest is definitely not aimed at pleasing critics. However, the target audience will lap up every burp, fart, urination joke and every bit of bad taste humour with relish. And when it’s ended, they will probably sidle up to the bar eager for a refill.
**
Reviewed by PETER KRAUSZ
I’m a fan of the laugh-a-minute parody films along the lines of Naked Gun, Top Secret, Scary Movie etc…and this film had the potential to work along the same lines. But alas, with the involvement of the unfunny Broken Lizard team, who had some success with the lacklustre Supertroopers, and then were responsible for the execrable Club Dread, as well as the totally askew Dukes Of Hazzard, all hope is lost.
What Jurgen Prochenow is doing in this totally unfunny piece of dreck, apart from being part of the laboured would-be gag about drinking from Das Boot (my sides were splitting at that) is beyond me; and not even Cloris Leachman, given some atrocious lines, can save this debacle. The beer chugging contests held between countries in secret, a la Fight Club, goes nowhere fast and after ten minutes is not only laboured, but unwatchable. Save your money.
Score: -1/10