21 and Over has the three elements necessary for a stereotypical “crazy night” movie: Jeff and his friends go on (1) an intoxicated adventure, filled with (2) violence and (3) seventh-grade-boy humor. Bonus: The writer-directors of this film co-wrote The Hangover.
From 1973’s American Graffiti and 1987’s Adventures in Babysitting to 2000’s Dude, Where’s My Car? and 2009’s The Hangover, the “one crazy night” subgenre of comedy films has been absolutely done to death.
And yet, despite the old age and massive overgrowth of the subgenre, many of the films that fit the pedigree have become venerable — and stoner — classics in their own right.
All-nighter comedy 21 and Over fits squarely into this trend — hell, part of the target demographic is referenced in the title — but fails to inspire with the same kind of quotable fiction that figureheads like the now-classic Superbad were able to obtain.
But while 21 and Over may be unoriginal, it doesn’t preclude the film from being painfully hilarious.
The story follows Miller (Miles Teller, The Spectacular Now and a star of last year’s up-all-night comedy Project X) and Casey (Skylar Astin, Wreck-It Ralph) as they drop in on their friend Jeff (Justin Chon, Detention of the Dead) just in time for his 21st birthday.
Jeff can’t go out partying because he has a big medical school interview the next morning, but Miller persuades everyone to go to the local college bars anyway for just one drink.
Of course, Jeff completely blacks out, which allows Miller and Casey to go on a grand adventure across the campus with their incapacitated friend, trying desperately to find a way back to his house before the interview.
It’s the same old story, complete with a horribly trite love triangle and a misbegotten emotional undercurrent about losing touch with friends. Unsurprisingly, it’s these pedestrian plot points that perpetually drag the film down.
Even so, the movie provides plenty of laughs to go around. While the physical comedy is a mix of cringe-worthy violence and gross-out body humor (including genitalia and vomiting), the dialogue in 21 and Over is absolutely superb.
The repartee between Miller and Casey feels natural, and conversations between them rarely go by without generating a few hearty laughs. The movie’s “R” rating helps all the humor as well, where even the blandest fart joke is lifted into new, nastier (re: better?) territory.
So 21 and Over is a hard movie to recommend or not recommend, as the case may be. Many people in that 21 and over age range have seen movies such as this more times than they care to remember, and even though 21 and Over makes for some good laughs, it isn’t particularly memorable.
Still, there’s a reason Hollywood can barely go six months without making a “one crazy night” comedy. Audiences find these films incredibly easy to relate to, and they live vicariously through the characters in these kinds of movies, who have their normal lives thrown out of whack by excessive drinking and coincidence. Especially among the notoriously party-ready college crowd, it can be fun to imagine what kind of shenanigans could ensue during a night out on the town.
If that’s the kind of film experience an audience wants, then 21 and Over is exactly the movie they should go see.
If that’s not enough for you anymore, then perhaps it might be time to stop living vicariously.
