Cheating heart

>> Slackers is silly but somehow likable


by Matthew Hays

To say that the latest teen flick, Slackers, is a movie devoid of all the usual crass stuff present in the recent spate of gross-out movies would be a lie. It is full of that stuff, from flatulence gags to masturbation jokes to endless disgusting bon mots. But here’s the punch line: Slackers is actually done with enough flare, enough chutzpah and enough intelligence (yes, intelligence) that it actually makes for an entertaining 87 minutes.
The film has three slackers riding their way through college on scams, cheats and underhanded stunts. The first few minutes of the film is particularly clever, as we witness all of their tricks of the trade: faked auto accidents lead to allowances of the completion of exams outside of assigned time. Meanwhile, an impostor attends the exam within the assigned time and nabs the questions, allowing for previously mentioned faker to gain valuable advance knowledge of test content. (No, this isn’t set at Simon Fraser University.)
Things get sticky when a certain jealous asshole (played with aplomb by Jason Schwartzman) catches onto their scam and blackmails them. Get him in touch with his dream girl and he’ll let them graduate without revealing them, he threatens.
But dream girl has a serious crush on one of the slackers (Devon Sawa), something that sends Schwartzman into a fit of fury. The slackerinos must figure out how to save their asses after Sawa ends up in love with the babe.
Screenwriter David Steinberg, a Yale law school graduate who apparently based some of the film on his experiences there, deserves much of the credit for the film’s successes: there are over-the-top fantasy sequences, unapologetically silly sex scenes and plenty of self-conscious stupidity. Where the film goes awry is when it morphs from a movie about cheating and getting caught into a how-to-prove-to-the-girl-he-really-loves-her movie. There haven’t been enough of the former and lord knows, there are way, way too many of the latter. Still, Slackers surprised me and did make me laugh a number of times—something you generally don’t expect from this genre. :

Slackers opens Friday, Feb. 1