Slackers (2002) Screen Gems/Comedy RT: 86 minutes Rated R (language, strong sexual content, drug use, gross sexual humor) Director: Dewey Nicks Screenplay: David H. Steinberg Music: Amanda Scheer-Demme Cinematography: James R. Bagdonas Release date: February 1, 2002 (US) Cast: Devon Sawa, Jason Schwartzman, James King, Jason Segel, Michael C. Maronna, Laura Prepon, Mamie Van Doren, Jim Rash, Gedde Watanabe, Sam Anderson, Leigh Taylor-Young, Joe Flaherty, Cameron Diaz. Box Office: $6.4 million (US)
Rating: NO STARS!!!
Slackers is a movie with absolutely no redeeming qualities. Everything about it is contemptible and disgusting. This is the kind of dirty movie that makes you run for a hot shower as soon as the closing credits start to roll; that is, if you even make it to the end. It has not one, not two, but THREE masturbation scenes. It’s hard to say which one causes the most discomfort. Here they are, you tell me. Somebody uses hot candle wax and a hair doll; another uses a sock puppet and sings a duet with it during the act. As nasty as these both sound, I’m going with the scene where a woman is masturbating in her dorm room when some guy she doesn’t even know walks in. She continues to pleasure herself, very audibly, while the guy looks through the room for a notebook. I’m sorry but that’s not funny; it’s just nasty and gross. It doesn’t even make any sense. Why would anybody masturbate in front of a stranger much less let him roam freely about the room?
I know it’s just a dumb college comedy and I shouldn’t attempt to analyze it, but Slackers is utterly and completely bad on every conceivable level. It’s bad on levels that haven’t even been discovered yet. Calling it a dirty movie would be awarding it dignity it doesn’t deserve. It’s completely devoid of laughs as well as anything resembling humor. It’s also loathsome, offensive and revolting. If you think any of the masturbation scenes are nasty, wait until you get a load of the scene where Ethan (I’ll describe him later) gives an elderly prostitute (50s sexpot Van Doren) a sponge bath in a hospital. We see her breasts. YUCK! It’s like seeing your grandmother naked and nobody wants to see that.
These are only a few of this movie’s “high points”, but I can assure you that the rest of Slackers is just as awful. It’s one of the absolute worst movie comedies ever made! I can’t believe that the studio even released it. It won’t even appeal to 12YOs looking for whacking material. There’s absolutely nothing of worth in this abomination; it’s an insult to the moviegoing public. In case you can’t tell, I absolutely deplore, despise and detest this vile movie!
Although I usually describe the plot first in my reviews, I thought I’d change it up as a service to mankind. It hardly matters what Slackers is about since the makers appear more concerned with how much gross-out humor they can cram into 86 of the longest minutes you’ll ever experience. Nevertheless, the review must go on and this means providing plot description. Okay, you got it, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
College buddies Dave (Sawa, Final Destination), Sam (Segel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Jeff (Maronna, Home Alone) have cheated their way through all four years of college. They come up with all sorts of elaborate and unbelievable schemes to avoid actually learning something. One such plan involves one of them faking a broken leg while another copies the physics mid-term by hand. This is where things begin to unravel, Dave takes a seat next to Angela (King, Sin City) at the physics exam which incurs the wrath of Ethan (Schwartzman, Rushmore), a creepy nerd who has a crush on her. After raising a big stink in the lecture hall, he informs Dave that he’s just made his little black book and intends to get even with him. Let me stop here and describe Ethan. He’s the reason restraining orders exist. Decent people go completely out of their way to avoid running into him. The very sight of him makes your skin crawl. And what’s up with that unibrow? His crush on Angela is more of an obsession. He has a shrine to her in his dorm room and a small doll made from her hair. In short, he’s a stalker. Ethan is the most disturbing character in an alleged comedy since they made a movie of the androgynous Pat character from SNL.
Anyway, Ethan discovers what these guys are doing and blackmails them into helping him hook up with Angela. There’s one major glitch though. Dave and Angela are attracted to one another. The last thing he wants to do is play matchmaker for some little creep, but he doesn’t want to be expelled from school either. Ethan holds the evidence over their heads and threatens to expose them unless they meet his demand.
There might be a funny movie to be made about college students going to ridiculous extremes in their cheating schemes but it sure isn’t Slackers. One of the main problems is that the titular slackers are more appalling than appealing. Take Jeff, for example. He’s the sock puppet owner and dorm room intruder that walked in on Angela’s best friend and roommate Reanna (Prepon, That 70s Show) while she pleasures herself. He’s absolutely repulsive! His character is described as somebody who marches to a different drummer, but I suspect he exists in an entirely different dimension. There is no logical explanation for his behavior. Of course, applying any sort of logic to this movie is tantamount to placing a washroom attendant outside a Port-a-Potty. It just doesn’t fit.
Schwartzmann made quite an impression in his acting debut, the Wes Anderson comedy Rushmore. He plays a nerd who falls in love with one of his teachers. It’s an excellent performance. It’s a nerd done right. Ethan is the complete antithesis of that character. He belongs in torture porn not college comedy. What was Schwartzman thinking when he signed on? Did he even bother reading the script? It would appear not. If he had, he would have rightly and flatly turned down the role. Ethan is the main thing that sinks Slackers to the lowest depths of filmed entertainment. The actor ought to be ashamed of himself.
Directed by somebody named Dewey Nicks, Slackers is a complete, all-around embarrassment. It’s populated by characters with low IQs and even less common sense. Most college girls would call campus police about a creep stalking them. It never once crosses Angela’s mind to do this. What is wrong with this girl? I’m not sure what to make of Reanna. She obviously has sex on the brain and no inhibitions whatsoever. I’m pretty sure I’ve never met anybody like her, but it’s a safe bet that somebody like her doesn’t exist in any reality I’m familiar with. The bottom line is that everybody in Slackers is an idiot to some extent. The actors don’t deliver performances; they demean themselves. Van Doren gets the worst of it. What the makers ask of the 70YO actress essentially amounts to elder abuse. To this day, I can’t believe she came out of retirement for this. I hope her grandchildren never watch it. And what, pray tell, is Cameron Diaz doing here? I know she doesn’t need money this badly.
There’s not a shred of style in Slackers. None whatsoever. There’s no artistry involved. It’s filmmaking on the basest of base levels. It’s so bad, it’s surreal. It doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as “film”. It doesn’t deserve to be mentioned at all. I mentioned Port-a-Potties earlier. Now I’m thinking they’re the ideal venue for this cinematic equivalent of fecal matter. It’s not that I’m a prude. On the contrary, I’m a big fan of vulgar comedies if they’re done right. I think Blazing Saddles is one the greatest comedies of all time. It’s crude but hilarious. Slackers is just gross. And who’s to blame for it, you ask? I’d say there enough to be distributed among all involved parties right down to the poor schnook who sweeps the floors at the end of each day’s shoot. However, the main perpetrators of this crime against cinema are the director and writer, Dewey Nicks and David. H. Steinberg.
There’s one scene that pretty much sums it up. There’s a scene where Dave and Angela are on a date. Suddenly in mid-conversation, the scene cuts to the guys’ dorm room where Jeff cuts a big fart. Then it goes right back to the date. Is it a commentary on the movie itself or a rectal raspberry to anybody dumb enough to waste their money on this unfunny pile of stinking, rotting, fly and maggot-infested garbage? How it got released is as big a mystery as how it even got made. Slackers sinks as low as a movie can go then goes even lower.
