Review of 21 & Over (2013) by Cassidy233491 — 15 Oct 2013

I was recently persuaded by my four male roommates to watch the comedy film “21 & Over”. The movie did not have any well known actors; the three lead roles were Miles Teller, Skylar Astin, and Justin Chon. The focus of the movie was on three high school best friends that meet up at their friend Jeff’s college campus to celebrate his 21st birthday. The setting of the film is present day on a college campus, mostly during the night of Jeff’s birthday.

The majority of the film consists of the three friends binge drinking on the night of one of the boy’s 21st birthday. The movie starts by two of the friends surprising Jeff on his doorstep to celebrate his birthday. Jeff is very hesitant to go out and celebrate because he has a medical school interview the following morning. After a lot of persuasion, Jeff finally agrees to go out for one drink. Of course, the next scene cuts to a very drunk Jeff who has clearly had more than one drink. The boys attend a number of bars and eventually Jeff throws up and passes out. His friends believe it is time to go home, but they realize they are not sure when their friends house is. The friends had met a pretty sorority girl at one of the bars earlier and they believe their only way of finding out where Jeff lives is to find her. The rest of the movie consists of the boys searching for their friends house to get him back home and rested before his big medical school interview in the morning.

The acting in this movie was very poor. There was no surprise that the lead actors are not popular or found in many other movies. The characters did not portray their emotions in a way that allowed the audience to connect or understand, making it hard to believe the storyline. The monotone voices of the characters made it nearly impossible to have much interest or excitement about what was going on.

The camera angles and shots were also poorly execute in this film. Most shots were eye level, completely disregarding any angled shots to get messages across. The only camera technique that was attempted was close up shots during scenes that were meant to be emotional or intimate. It seemed as though most of the shots used in the movie were only meant to show the audience a standard view; no messages were able to be portrayed or expressed through the shots in the film. Everything about the film was basic, and this included the filmmaking techniques. The target audience of this film is definitely a younger crowd of high school and college kids, so perhaps the directors believed they could get away with the poor filmmaking techniques.

My overall reaction to the film was not a good one. The story line was something that has been done multiple times before. It seemed as though the director and screenwriters were desperately trying to be like successful comedies before them, such as “The Hangover”. There was nothing new or exciting about this movie. In addition to the poor and overused storyline, the acting was terrible. The interaction of the characters seemed forced and there was little believable emotion. Perhaps if the filming techniques were stronger the film could have been a little better, but even the camera shots, editing, and background music were also less than par. In addition to the poor filming, any female character in the movie was only talked about in a sexualized way; whether it was the boys trying to sleep with the sorority girl or them spanking other college girls, it was clear the boys viewed the girls only as sexual objects. It is also evident the target audience of the film is young men. There was nothing enjoyable about this “comedy” and I would not recommend seeing it. That was the last time I will take a movie suggestion from my roommates.