FRAT HOUSE (HBO) Producers: Todd Phillips and Andrew Gurland. Directors: Todd Phillips and Andrew Gurland. MPAA Rating: Unrated (could be R for nudity, profanity and drug use) Running Time: 60 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
*Note: FRAT HOUSE will appear on HBO in the spring as a presentation of "HBO Undercover"
I've known many men and women over the years who were members of Greek organizations in college. I have heard their decisions to pledge defended with terms like "service," "networking," or "fellowship." However, the most brutally honest explanation I've ever heard comes from one unnamed student in the Sundance Grand Prize winning documentary FRAT HOUSE: "It's about finding the people you enjoy getting f*****d up with most."
FRAT HOUSE doesn't spend much time on the question of why peole join fraternities and sororities, perhaps limited by a television-restricted running time. It aroused my interest enough that I was disappointed to find that issue unexplored, but ultimately Todd Phillips and Andrew Gurland's goal was to show _what_ people join when they join fraternities and sororities. However, though their footage of hazing, strippers, binge-drinking and humiliation has "expose'" written all over it, I'd be lying if I said I was surprised by anything I saw in FRAT HOUSE. The film depicts college-age males in all their testosterone-fuelled glory, reveling in their ability to dominate others in the name of "brotherhood," homophobic epithet-slinging and the pursuit of women (though the fairer gender is more frequently referred to with a five-letter anatomical slang synonymous with "feline"). I saw enough in my own college days to reach the point where nothing a drunken, misogynistic 19-year-old does or says will shock me.
What _is_ shocking and surprising is the fact that Phillips and Gurland were able to capture this behavior on film. The notoriously secretive nature of Greek initiation was laid bare thanks to an East Carolina University fraternity member, lovingly known as Blossom. A thick-headed ogre of a human being, Blossom tells all and shows all to the film-makers with the arrogant disregard of someone whose worldview revolves around the complete absence of consequences. Only when it becomes clear that his brethren have gotten cold feet does Blossom summarily (and psychotically) dismiss Phillips and Gurland, with a slap in the face for good measure.
While FRAT HOUSE is certainly a testemonial to male bonding at its ugliest, it may be even more effective as a testemonial to the determination of the film-makers. After losing their "in" at ECU, Phillips and Gurland managed to find another fraternity willing to open its doors on condition of anonymity. There was one other condition as well: the film-makers themselves would be obliged to go through everything the pledges went through. Thus began a nightmarish six weeks during which the two directors would be subjected to verbal abuse, sleep deprivation, punishing and pointless boot camp-style exercise, open flames, and several activities which suggest the brothers were spending _far_ more time dreaming up creative tortures than they were on academia. Never has the pain of creating a film gelled as smoothly with the subject of the film itself.
It doesn't do justice to the quality of FRAT HOUSE as a piece of film-making to focus entirely on the hard work of Phillips and Gurland. Their instincts for making their subject entertaining are impressive, notably in a hilarious juxtaposition of one sorority's "Hell Night" (composed primarily of sobbing through a lyrically-amended version of "Through the Years") with the fraternal equivalent. FRAT HOUSE is worth watching not just because the subject matter is sensational, though that may draw some concerned parents. Its real achievement is creating a record of the kind of ridiculous, frightening and grimly hysterical behavior everyone already knows goes on college campuses across the country; it's the realest "Real World" episode you'll ever see. Credit Phillips and Gurland with going the extra mile to show that reality to the world.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 brothers in harm: 9.
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