Loser is a well meaning film from the director of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the writer/director of Clueless. Can't miss you think? Third time is not the charm for director Amy Heckerling. She means well, but this one is a dull, after school special with a couple of good ideas, a couple of good scenes, and some likeable performers adrift in a film that feels twice as long as it should be. And since the film clocks in at 97 minutes that's a big problem.
The film tries way too hard to make the lead victim (I mean actor) into a hopeless, over trusting, pathetic geek, that you go from feeling pity to wanting him to get the girl and the film to be over so you can get away from this pathetic creep within the film's first 20 minutes. You know within fifteen minutes what is going to happen, it's getting there that is winds up being such a chore to sit through.
Paul (played by Jason Biggs of American Pie) is a nice naive, dorky kid from a small town who's going to college on a scholarship in New York City. He's terrified of meeting smart sarcastic people "like from Seinfeld", and not being able to make friends or do well in school. He should be terrified. His three room-mates are the room-mates from hell. Rich, spoiled party going slackers, who are at the college for two purposes only –to bed girls and get wasted. In fact they use the rape drug to spike drinks at parties and nightclubs to make sure they get ‘lucky'. Paul is a goody goody nerdy kid who's not only a drag, but not even rich. So the three room-mates play nasty pranks on Paul and then tired of that, they make sure he gets kicked out of the dorm. This means Paul must board in an all purpose room at the off-campus College Animal Shelter. He also has to work there for his room and board.
Huh? What? Well it sounds so ridiculous perhaps it's absolutely true and not the obvious convenient quirky screenwriter invention it seems to be. Eventually Paul's old room-mates are being nice to him because, Paul can help them throw a party in the Animal Shelter after hours... right? Does the nerdy kid actually fall for this? Of course he does. He's a LOSER in a movie called L-- O-- S-- E-- R right? At this point I was wondering why the film wasn't called
STUPID.
Oh and there's a girl. She's kind a loser herself although she is named Dora Diamond, because Nora Desmond would have been too obvious I suppose(she's played by Mena Suvari of American Beauty fame). She's smart, is barely able to afford college, and dresses like Ally Sheedy did in the Breakfast Club. She also having an affair with the literature professor (Greg Kinnear at his smarmy best) who's a real sleazy jerk. She loves him, but he could care less about her.
Paul and Dora meet cute and eventually become friends. Paul hopes to be more than her friend and scores some tickets to a concert for one of her favorite bands, Everclear. She's suppose to meet him at the concert, but well... they're both such LOSERS a complication occurs and
before you can spell pathetic, well Dora is the Emergency Room getting her stomach pumped because she's over-dosed on drugs.
Now it looks like Paul will finally get Dora... Oh but not yet. . ., before much happens, the Professor shows up and asks Dora to move in with him. Oh there's an ulterior motive for him doing so of course, but because the characters are LOSERS and STUPID well the film drags out a little longer before the inevitable, predictable twists of the plot allow Paul and Dora to finally discover they are in love with one another.
Then we get a very pleasant montage where Paul and Dora discover how to have lots of fun in New York City without spending any money, by using some street smart tricks. It's a well done
scene and far better than anything else in the entire film.
Now I didn't actually ruin the film because within five minutes you'll know where the film is heading and there's little doubt there would be a film at all if it didn't end the way it does. It's some of the details I've skipped that provide the film it's few small blips of interest.
Oh that's not true. The film also has several brief famous people cameos. Bobby Slater plays
a semi-strip, strip-club owner, where Dora works as a waitress. Steven Wright shows up as a customer for a few moments. Dan Ackroyd plays Paul's dad who gives Paul some sage Dad advice before sending him off to New York City and college. David Spade pops up looking like he lost a bet in an all night poker game. He delivers a couple of funny lines as a video store clerk and then he's back at the poker game or sleeping it off.
After about the first hour of the slow moving, dull film I started feeling like a LOSER for not turning off the DVD and going to bed. Well I finished watching the film so that I could warn some of you...
At the end of the film... they run those titles under the characters you have been watching. They've done this in good movies like American Graffitti, and Animal House, and they have over-done it without good reason in dozens of films.. including Three Kings ever since.
Well they do this in Loser too. And the gimmick felt so completely out of place and pointless, I find it difficult to believe that the person who made one of the most underrated and under-appreciated classics : CLUELESS , could have possible made a film as pointless and dull as
LOSER.
You've been warned..
Probably should have given the thing two stars, but then you might be tempted to sit through it... so....
Chris Jarmick, Author (The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder-a steamy cyber- thriller Available January 2001)
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