'Everybody Wants Some' features beer, brahs and profundity

Blake Jenner and Glen Powell in "Everybody Wants Some!" Image courtesy Paramount Pictures.

It's difficult to find any of the main characters likable for a large portion of Richard Linklater's new film, “Everybody Wants Some!” They are more often than not dumb and brutish, obsessed with alcohol and sex and goofy antics that sometimes devolve to cruelty. Even the film acknowledges these guys are typical dumb jocks treated with fealty by a system that genuflects to their athletic prowess. And then, all of a sudden, these little inklings of melancholy and philosophical musings begin to creep up within what started off as stereotypes and it becomes difficult to avoid falling for these idiots a bit; as many of them realize, life won't be much sweeter than it is for them right now. And, as they figure it, it’s best to not let that opportunity go to waste.

Right now, for the characters in “Everybody Wants Some!”, is 1980 at Southeast Texas University, three days before the start of the first semester for freshman Jake (a charming Blake Jenner). He's a new pitcher for the schools high-caliber baseball program and moves in to a decrepit off campus house with a few teammates. Among this crop of excitable boys is superstar and team captain McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin), space cadet stoner/pitcher Willoughby (Wyatt Russell), second baseman Dale (J. Quinton Johnson), the chatty Finn (Glen Powell), and amateur braggadocio Jay Niles (Juston Street). The players spend those three days bar hopping, brawling, hosting an epic party, attending an epic party, making dumb bets, mocking one another, and, for Jenner's Jake, courting attractive coed Beverly (Zoey Deutch).

And, well, that's about it for the plot to “Everybody Wants Some!” It's a pretty typical flick for writer/director Linklater, who spends almost two hours observing the characters waste away the first few days before the school year begins. It's a very long time to spend with people who are, at least on the surface, obnoxious jackanapes obsessed with causing destruction and mayhem wherever they go. This is a privileged class of people on the college campus, a team that, as the players outline, is the only successful program the college has to offer at all. They're effectively the default kings of campus, never required to go to class or have an actual major; their default line when asked about what they study is to state their presence on the team.

It does take a while to get to the full point of sympathy for these guys, so it helps that Linklater shows off his underrated sense of humor to keep the audience invested. Linklater is smart enough to make the puerile jocks the butt of the jokes, whether it's pranks amongst themselves or a female character shooting down sad, pathetic advances toward her. The audience is meant to laugh at them, but not in a particularly mean-spirited fashion either; for all their flaws and grandiose acts of stupidity, Linklater clearly cares for the group of guys he's created.  (Linklater played baseball for Sam Houston State for a couple of years in the early ’80s, adding some autobiographical context to this movie.)

“Everybody Wants Some!” never loses its sense of humor, but it begins to add little clues to offer sympathy for the adult-like devils. Much of it comes from Powell's Finn, who talks endlessly about a litany of topics while dabbling in some legitimate profundity when he isn't trying to talk a girl or two into something or other. He is very cognizant that their life as baseball players will probably end after college, that pro ball isn't in their stars unless they happen to be as gifted as Hoechlin's McReynolds (Linklater demonstrates the gap in talent with a brilliant scene). The saddest moment of the film comes when one player realizes his opportunity has come and gone, and he walks off with one final little wave of philosophy and a peace offering left behind for his former teammates.

Much of what happens in “Everybody Wants Some!” occurs amid a conversation, snuck in so Jenner’s Jake can listen in on the commentary. He’s portrayed as more of an explorer than a traditional baseball player, a person who will eagerly hit up a punk show and compare Sisyphus to baseball while absorbing knowledge and philosophy to prepare for whatever happens tomorrow. It's funny then that his final moment should find him falling asleep in his first class, shortly after the instructor writes “frontiers are where you find them” on the chalkboard and as the somewhat sardonic “Good Times Roll” plays for the audience's benefit. He's embracing his preferred status on campus, cognizant that what he needs to learn will come outside his classroom’s walls.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see a trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 116 minute

Genre: Comedy

Ask Away

Target audience: People nostalgic for other days and Richard Linklater zealots.

Take the whole family?: The film does feature a bit of nudity and a sizable amount of sexual content and swearing. So, probably not.

Theater or Netflix?: I still recommend taking a theater trip for this one, but you can get away with waiting a few months for streaming versions.

Will the soundtrack get stuck in your head?: Let's just say you might load up a few songs on YouTube while working the following morning. “Everybody Wants Some!” just owns the music, from the opening of “My Sharona” to that last song by The Cars before the end credits commence. There is even a cute music video featuring the cast rapping in the style of The Sugarhill Gang during the back end of the roll.

Watch this as well?: “Dazed and Confused,” “Slacker,” and the three entries into the “Before” trilogy offer the best representation of Linklater's sensibilities as a director, along with his proclivity to capture profundity within just a few hours or days.

Robert De Niro has sunk to a new low

Zac Efron and Robert De Niro exert energy in "Dirty Grandpa." Image courtesy Lionsgate.

I have no idea why Robert De Niro chose to participate in “Dirty Grandpa.” I doubt very much that he needs a cash influx – being Robert De Niro creates access to choice roles not offered to the Burt Reynolds of the world. There is a chance De Niro just likes these types of films – he did star in multiple “Meet the Parents” flicks over the years – although his palpable boredom and sincere lack of effort on screen makes that a no. Maybe he just wanted to exchange lazy innuendo with Aubrey Plaza, which, really, is difficult to fault a person for doing at all. Whatever the reason may be, the result is a dreadful film that has one of the greatest cinematic figures repeatedly jamming his thumb up Zac Efron's butt and dropping a lot of discomfiting racist and homophobic humor because why not.

Before all of that happens though, De Niro's Dick Kelly is mourning the loss of his beloved wife, who died after a very long battle with cancer. Supposedly grief stricken, De Niro recruits his grandson Jason (Efron), a young lawyer at his father's (Dermot Mulroney) firm, to drive with him from Atlanta to Boca Raton Florida to play a little golf and bond. It’s worth nothing that this plan, for whatever reason, takes place a week before Efron's wedding to stereotypical controlling fiance Meredith (Julianne Hough).

De Niro’s plan gets derailed once he and Efron encounter college students Plaza (about a decade too old for this role, but whatever), Bradley (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, also a decade too old for his part) and Efron's former classmate/token love interest Shadia (Zoey Deutch, actually the appropriate age for her part) heading to Daytona Beach for spring break weekend.  De Niro really, really wants to spend some quality time with Plaza, and coerces Efron to head to the beach for a weekend of debauchery. There they encounter irascible drug dealer Pam (Jason Mantzoukas), LAX bros Cody and Brah (Jake Picking and Michael Hudson, respectively) and some morally squiffy cops (Mo Collins and Henry Zebrowski), among others. Such racism, along with shenanigans involving penises, drawings of penises, sexual harassment, drugs, booze, flexing, punching and everything else that happens during an average weekend in Florida, ensue.

Something “Dirty Grandpa” deserves credit for is delivering exactly what the previews and title promise; De Niro saying and doing filthy, disgusting things. For anyone who wants to see Jimmy Conway do such things, this is probably the best opportunity he or she will ever have to witness such things, regardless of how effective Jake LaMotta is at actually performing it. The answer to that remains to be determined; as mentioned above, De Niro really isn't putting in that much effort into this one – even his emotional scenes underwhelm – so he gets a begrudging incomplete. It is, however, fair to provide an “F” to the person who decided to cast young Vito Corleone as the comedic driving force for this film.

I'd say De Niro doesn't quite fit this type of film, but I'm not sure the filmmakers (director Dan Mazer and writer John Phillips) are up to the task of serving a proper film. The plot, which is trite and obvious, makes zero sense and stretches the limits of credulity frequently. There are also a number of weird plot holes that need filling in, most notably how Efron and Deutch could have taken a class together when the former is an established attorney and the latter hasn't graduated college. Add to that some noticeable continuity errors and frequent syncing issues with the audio, and you have yourself a rather lovely mess of a film.

A comedy can overcome such issues, although a movie does actually have to be funny to do so. I shouldn't say “Dirty Grandpa” is a dire film that acts as a sinkhole for jokes – humor is subjective after all – but  I can say whatever laughs are to be found in this film are based on stereotypes, sexual anatomy, De Niro, or some combination of the three. In other words, it's not very inventive, although neither is the depiction of women as, to put it uncomfortably bluntly, sluts, saints and shrews. “Dirty Grandpa” aims for the reliable lowest common denominator and strikes gold at the expense of social progress, the state of comedy, and De Niro's dignity, or at least what's left of it.

Rating: One and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 102 minutes

Genre: Comedy

Ask Away

Target audience: Anyone who wants to watch Robert De Niro curse wantonly.

Take the whole family?: An onslaught of junk shots makes this rather inappropriate for kids, so keep anyone below their mid teens at home.

Theater or Netflix?: Netflix and other streaming options only if you must.

What does work in 'Dirty Grandpa'?: A couple of jokes do land to bump it from miserable to just bad, and Jason Mantzoukas and Aubrey Plaza are both very game, even if the former's character belongs in a radically different film. Despite my reservations about this film, “Dirty Grandpa,” somehow, could've been a whole lot worse.

Watch this instead?: You're better served checking out a couple of movies featuring the stars of “Dirty Grandpa.” Both “Neighbors” (which has Mantzoukas and Zac Efron) and “The To Do List” (featuring Plaza) are silly, gross-out comedies, but they're smarter than expected and much better executed than this one.