**/****
starring Devon Sawa, Jason Schwartzman, James King, Michael C. Maronna
screenplay by David H. Steinberg
directed by Dewey Nicks
by Walter Chaw A film that does for masturbation what Freddy Got Fingered did for manually pleasuring large land mammals, Slackers is a teen revenge/romance film (a bellicose cross between Real Genius and Three o’Clock High) that surprises for its random Conan O’Brien-esque spark of perverse invention. There are at least two sequences that belong in a better film, and they’re tied together by a gross-out comedy that vacillates between the typical (a vibrator gag) and the surreal (a talking penis-powered sock puppet). It’s an amalgam of Farrelly Brothers archetypes (i.e., the flawless inamorata: gorgeous, kind, candy striper) and Jason Schwartzman’s Rushmore-brand of aggressive outcast, and though it spends long minutes flirting with “potential cult favourite,” Slackers ends up as just another ugly also-ran.
“Cool” Ethan (Schwartzman) catches a trio of professional cheaters–Dave, Sam, and Jeff (Devon Sawa, Jason Segel, and Michael Maronna, respectively)–in the act and blackmails them into getting him a date with the girl he’s stalking, Angela (James King). Predictably, Dave ends up spending altogether too much time with Angela and as a consequence, the two fall in love with each other. Thus, friends are betrayed and must be won back, the girl will find out the truth and must be won back, and all will be well by the time the lights come up, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, and so on.
An opening sequence gives hope that Slackers will be a college-heist film detailing the labyrinthine machinations our trio of ragamuffins employ to graduate. Its bucolic vision of college, free of many of the clique stereotypes popular since Animal House, Slackers‘ obvious aspirations to be something better are sunk by its mundane plotting and the lifelessness of its lead romantic pairing. Distinguished mostly by the fact that he’s starting to look like Anthony Michael Hall, Devon Sawa is listless; James King is cute but listless. Jason Segel and Laura Prepon fare considerably better as quirky sidekicks, yet for Slackers to balance its relentless dedication to being repulsive, arch, and obnoxious, there needs to be a weightier counter on its narrative teeter-totter.
Slackers shows some life during its opening sequence, in a magnificent Ace of Base-scored bit which ends before a prancing Children’s Chorale, and with its final exam resolution. But these pieces are not enough in and of themselves to excuse Schwartzman’s sociopathology (never adequately explored), nor can we dismiss the rote disinterest engendered by what is essentially a story shared by every teensploitation film that Slackers ostensibly disdains. With cameos from Mamie Van Doren (still baring her breasts at 70, bless her), Cameron Diaz, and Joe Flaherty, Slackers has its moments, to be sure, but it’s too interested in jerking off in all its byzantine incarnations to bother pleasuring its audience.
