Movie Review - Loser
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2000 / 98 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Jason Jones
While watching “Loser” I couldn’t help but get the feeling that the film was nothing more than some Gen-X loser’s sorry attempt at cross-breeding “Animal House” and “American Pie” with the plot-lines of the most contrived of romantic comedies.
Let’s just say the results are less than ideal.
The story of “Loser” is one that we’ve heard and seen many times before. Small town kid (Jason Biggs) graduates from high school and decides to go to the big city to further his education. If you look up “fish out of water” in Webster’s Dictionary you should find this plot listed, as it is essentially the textbook scenario. Once the kid makes his way to the big city he manages to screw everything up with his roommates. He is a square peg in a round hole world. His roommates are all stoners who have no ambition while our friend (we’ll start referring to him as Paul since that’s what he’s called in the movie) studies during every waking moment of every day. One good thing in his life is that he has met a “Florence Nightingale” type in Mena Suvari’s character Dora. Problem is she has been getting tutored in the ways of the Kama Sutra by her teacher Edward Alcott (the seemingly perpetually lecherous Greg Kinnear). Things will get worse before they get better, of course. That’s just how things work in movies like this. Eventually it will get better. That is expected of these sorts of movies. We wouldn’t have it any way now would we.
This film suffers from the “been there done that” syndrome that plagues so many films nowadays. This is especially surprising given the fact that Amy Heckerling was helming this ship. Given the brilliance of her past work which includes such screen gems as “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and (I know I’m alone on this one) “Clueless”. I was expecting a certain amount of creativity and depth out of this film. Unfortunately I received little to none of either.
There is very little that one can say that hadn’t seen before watching this movie. Perhaps a guy getting booted from his dorm room and having to take up residence in a veterinary clinic.
That was mildly interesting, but it seemed only to exist to make Paul a more sympathetic character to both Dora and the audience. “Oh, he loves animals! How cute.” Now before PETA gets on my case, I would like to say that I love animals (some of them anyway) as well. I just don’t think it’s necessary to inform us of it in such a contrived way as this film manages to do.
There is also too much convenience. Early in the movie Paul notices that Dora has a fondness for the band Everclear. He immediately logs this in the “potential smooth move” file of his brain and lo and behold mere weeks later guess who’s in town!?!? That’s right, our old friends Everclear. It’s almost as if it was meant to happen isn’t it? Now I can speak from experience on this one. That sort of nonsense does not happen in the real world. Now, I am perfectly willing to suspend my disbelief for a film, but there has to be a point where one draws the line and for me that is with overly coincidental concert scheduling.
The beneficiary of this mystical concert scheduling is Paul, played by Jason Biggs (”American Pie”). Biggs tries a bit of a change of pace from his character in “American Pie”. In that movie he was a naive young punk who in the end wanted nothing more to bed just about anything that moved. This time out he is once again naive, but he is a well intended soul who seems to be looking more for Miss Right than Miss Chokesondick. He sells this fairly well, although the film may have been better off with him reprising the same characteristics that made his “American Pie” alter ego so endearing. Regardless, he manages to sell his character with at least minimal success, because we want to like him and we eventually will come around whether or not the film warrants it.
Joining Biggs, as his love interest, is fellow “American Pie” alumnus Mena Suvari, who is best known for lying naked in a bed of flower petals in “American Beauty”. If you’ve seen her in anything before then you’ve seen her in this. She plays the same character that we’ve seen in her previous work. Perhaps a mish-mash of the downy innocent from “American Pie” with the know-it-all from “American Beauty” but the same for better or worse. I must add that she does look quite smashing as a brunette, rather than a blonde as we’ve seen her before. Also I would like to add that it would be nice if she could find a way to be in something, anything that doesn’t include American in the title. I’m all about patriotism, but Mena, this is ridiculous.
The shortcomings of “Loser” far outweigh the positives. It appears as if Heckerling mailed it in on this one by merely attempting to mine well trodden territory with nothing but a poorly done “American Pie” spinoff to show for her efforts.
