DRINKING GAMES
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1996 James Berardinelli
RATING (0 TO 10): 5.0 Alternative Scale: ** out of ****
United States, 1996 Shown at the 1996 SXSW Film Festival Running Length: 1:34 MPAA Classification: No MPAA Rating (Mature themes, profanity, sex) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Cast: Christian Leffler, Dinah Leffert, Geoffrey Smith, Brian Anthony, Melanie Koch, Andrea White, Jason Frazier, Gina Marie Gian Director: Joseph Lawson Producers: Scott Burgin, Joseph Lawson Screenplay: Joseph Lawson Cinematography: Marc Greenfield
DRINKING GAMES is an uninspired, often-insipid Generation X version of THE BIG CHILL. Recycling plot elements from better films, DRINKING GAMES never establishes a unique identity. From start to finish, this movie is derivative. It's basically about a bunch of post-college friends spending a night sitting around a table, drinking, reminiscing, and speculating about the future. There are an equal number of men and women, so, in the end, they pair off and have sex. It's all pretty routine and predictable -- writer/director Joseph Lawson never attempts anything daring or original.
The six friends -- Noah (Christian Leffler), Whitney (Dinah Leffert), Scott (Geoffrey Smith), JC (Brian Anthony), Alex (Melanie Koch), and Heather (Andrea White) -- gather following the funeral of Tara, a member of their inner circle who recently committed suicide. During their all-night gab session, they talk about everything from sex to reincarnation, including such offbeat topics as how to dispose of a dead body and giving an iguana an enema. Few of the conversations are interesting, because none of the characters attains any aspect of three- dimensionality. We're a fly on the wall, watching these people as they drink themselves into oblivion as a balm to their grief, but we never get a sense of any genuine personalities beneath all the dialogue.
The actors, all of whom are relative unknowns, acquit themselves nicely despite the script's limitations. Dinah Leffert, who plays the sexually voracious Whitney, is especially noteworthy. But the performances are about all that's worthwhile here. Lawson may think he has his finger on the pulse of today's twenty-something men and women, but, as is the case in so many Generation X pictures, all he's doing is recycling familiar cinematic conventions.
- James Berardinelli e-mail: berardin@bc.cybernex.net web: http://www.cybernex.net/~berardin (or) http://www2.cybernex.net/~berardin
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