Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Theme Week - Broken Lizard; Beerfest

We continue Broken Lizard Week with the guy’s fourth film (and third that I saw of theirs), and some would say their best – Beerfest.  And before we continue, a minor CSB: when I saw this film at the cinema, it was the only time in all my many years of cinema attendance, that the projectionist screwed up the reels, instead of getting a standard 1-2-3-4 viewing experience, I got 1-3-2-4. Noone complained, but we all knew. So, it wasn’t until years later when I bought the DVD that I actually saw the film in its proper order. Funtimes were had by all.

Long story short, the brothers Wolfhouse (Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske, this time getting to play the heroes rather than the zany guys) get roped into competing in Beerfest, a secret underground drinking game contest, when they discover that their grandfather may have stolen a recipe for the greatest beer in all the world. During their yearlong training routine, they discover that they are the true heirs to both the recipe and the von Wolfhausen brewery an together with the rest of the team, Landfill (Kevin Heffernan) – a professional eater, Fink Finkelstein (Steve Lemme) – a beer obsessed chemist, and Barry Badrinath (Jay Chandrasekhar) – a homeless male prostitute return to Germany to take back their heritage from their German cousins.

As I mentioned in my Super Troopers review, the guys get some pretty big names to run alongside them, and Beerfest is no different as Donald Sutherland, Cloris Leachman, Wil Forte and Jurgen Prochnow all willingly going along with the lunacy of the story. Leachman and Forte, particularly damn near steal the movie as Gam Gam Wolfhouse and Otto, respectively.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am not a fan of the whole “you need to watch it multiple times to really like it” defence when it comes to comedy films – if I don’t find you funny the first time, then why the hell would I bother wasting my time with watching you again? However, I will let you in on a secret – I have not more than merely “liked” a Broken Lizard film the first time I saw them, and it was only on subsequent watches that I loved them. That being said, Beerfest (while not my favourite film of theirs) is the closest I have come to immediately loving a Broken Lizard film.

If you like jokes about drinking, stupid humour or Wil Forte doing a silly German accent, then you really should do yourself the service of seeing Beerfest.

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