Beerfest – A film review by Daniel Prinn – It suffers from a lack of charm and plot.

Beerfest

Release Date: August 25, 2006

Director: Jay Chandrasekhar

Stars: Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme

Runtime: 110 min

Tagline: Bring on the beer. They’ve got the nuts.

They certainly brought on some beer, but they didn’t bring us a lot of laughs.

Two brothers, Jan and Todd Wolfhouse, must travel to Munich for a traditional ceremony after the death of their grandfather. The ceremony is to put the urn of their grandfather’s ashes among the other urns of their ancestors, at Oktoberfest. After things go awry at Oktoberfest, their contact brings them to an underground beer games competition called Beerfest, often described as the ‘Fight Club’ of the beer drinking universe. There, they meet some nasty Germans who turn out to be their distant cousins, who accuse their grandfather of being a thief and their Great grandmother (Gam Gam) of being an old fashioned whore. They lasso up a beer drinking team, to get payback for the defilement of their family name, at next year’s Beerfest.

I’m writing this review after numerous watches, it used to sort of always be a guilty pleasure – that is, until I really knew how to look for a solid plot. That being said, the plot is pretty ridiculous here; I mean, I like my comedies with at least some strand of plot. I was expecting more from the creator of Super Troopers.

I’ll start with the positives. When it is funny, it usually is very funny. Some of the jokes are quite hit and miss, but a lot hit. Some of the characters you can get attached to, despite each of their annoying mannerisms. Landfill was my favourite here, but the actor is also my favourite of the Broken Lizard comedy team, so that may have a large influence. Another redeeming quality, though, is the (little bit of) nudity.

Unfortunately, now I have to tear this former guilty pleasure of mine apart. The gallons and gallons of beer very much outweigh the lack of laughs given to us throughout the feature; there definitely isn’t a laugh per minute. Some of the characters are just really, really obnoxious and irritating; especially some characters on the German team. Though, the character played by Will Forte was pretty funny. It is also quite a bit lengthy and overstays its welcome for a comedy that hardly has a great plot. It is sometimes had to bare through, because some of it is just so unfunny and irritating. It’s really too bad that the team couldn’t insert a whole lot of charm into this, like they did with Super Troopers.

Beerfest stars the Broken Lizard comedy team (creators of Super Troopers), Cloris Leachman, Will Forte, Nat Faxon, Eric Christian Olsen, Mo’Nique and Donald Sutherland.

Beerfest doesn’t offer a whole lot of laughs, but there are a few memorable ones. It’s a poor endeavour by the team; but can be enjoyable for frat comedy fans. It’s a fairly effective college comedy; that instead of teens, grown men are drinking the beers. My suggestion is to, like those guys in the film, see this drunk. It should help enhance more enjoyment.

When I loved this, I would have given it a 70, but now I’d give it a 50. So, in all fairness, I’ll meet in the middle.

60/100

 

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