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Laramie Movie Scope: Loser

Country boy in trouble in the big city

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by Robert Roten, Film Critic
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July 23, 2000 -- Despite good acting by some talented actors "Loser" eventually sinks because of some truly vicious characters who are way out of place in this lightweight romantic comedy.

At the center of the story is Paul Tannek (Jason Biggs of "American Pie"), a college student from a small, rural town, who feels very out of place at a big city university. He gets no help from his dorm roommates who see him as a loser. In fact, he's about as nice as a person possibly could be. Like Will Rogers, he never meets anyone he doesn't like. His roommates pull vicious pranks on him and insult him at every opportunity. Their favorite sport seems to be date rape, which they accomplish by slipping drugs into the drinks of women at parties.

Since when is rape funny? This is not really a black comedy where an adventurous filmmaker might try something like this. It's about as funny as an abortion. Paul meets with Dora Diamond (Mena Suvari of "American Beauty," "American Pie") and the two seem to click. One problem, she's having an affair with a professor, Edward Alcott, (Greg Kinnear of "Mystery Men"). Paul is too classy to blackmail the professor into giving him better grades when he finds out about the affair, but his three roommates, of course, are all too eager to do it.

One series of scenes has Dora showing Paul how to "live off the land" in New York City. How to steal stuff from stores for food and how to sneak into broadway shows for entertainment. It is sort of the equivalent to living in the woods wherever Paul came from. The rest of the plot is essentially a series of devices to keep Paul and Dora apart when it is pretty obvious they ought to get together. There's not much of a hint of the cleverness that writer-director Amy Heckerling showed in "Clueless."

The three roommates, Chris (Thomas Sadoski in his film debut), Adam (Zak Orth of "In and Out") and Noah (Jimmi Simpson in his film debut) are all convincingly repugnant. Simpson has a good screen presence and shows some promise. Suvari and Biggs are both very appealing, but they are just about the only ones in the film who are. Kinnear is very good as the haughty professor. Dan Aykroyd has an all-too-small role as Paul's father. The soundtrack is pretty good, with one rip-off of a song and high camera shot from "The Graduate" evidently done for comic effect. The film rates a C.

Click here for links to places to buy this movie in video and/or DVD format, the soundtrack, books, even used videos, games and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

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Copyright © 2000 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.
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Robert Roten can be reached via e-mail at my last name at lariat dot org. [Mailer button: image of letter and envelope]

(If you e-mail me with a question about this or any other movie or review, please mention the name of the movie you are asking the question about, otherwise I may have no way of knowing which film you are referring to)