Reviews

Beerfest

In my own experiences I know that beer drinking is a competitive sport and should be an Olympic event, but Beerfest takes that whole ideology to another level.

The Broken Lizard gang hits another one with this movie, as they did with Super Troopers. Jay Chandrasekhar once again takes the director’s reigns and, as in the past, the entire troupe does the screenwriting. This should be another cult hit for them, but my hope is that one day they can have a hit for themselves and not just feed off Chandrasekhar’s larger directing credits to fund more Broken Lizard films.

The plot goes like this: Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske play brothers Jan and Todd Wolfhouse. After their grandfather passes away (played by Donald Sutherland) they are charged with taking his ashes to Munich and placing them in a scared family plot. What the brothers find is this sacred area is at an underground beer drinking competition know as Beerfest. There they are humiliated by their cousins, the championship German team, and learn of a sordid family history involving a stolen family beer recipe. The defeated brothers decide to retaliate against the German team and form their own from their odd bunch of friends. They eventually recruit the rest of the troupe, Landfill (Kevin Heffernan), Fink (Steve Lemme) and Barry (Chandrasekhar). Over the next year they train for the competition, find and brew the family beer recipe and various other elements of hilarity.

Since this is a little larger budgeted film they were able to pull in a few other comedic actors and some not-so-comedic actors to round out the cast: Will Forte (Saturday Night Live), Eric Christian Olsen (Dumb and Dumberer), Mo’Nique, professional German Jurgen Prochnow, Cloris Leachman and the aforementioned Sutherland make up the rest of this bunch.

There are some critics that just won’t get it and will pass this film off as another frat boy comedy and simply pan it, but the Broken Lizard gang is so much more talented than your average comedy. They manage to come off as sophomoric and merely adding to the wealth of bathroom humor that this country is known for, but the real twist is they are really much more intelligent and very witty. As a writing team they take chances that others dare not and have some of the best comedic timing I’ve seen in years. They know exactly where to end a joke and not let it drag on too long. They also have a knack for allowing you to laugh at something that you might be afraid to, in fear of not being p.c. At the same time though, there is genuine warmth and a sense of family in their films and this is no different.

Now aside from all this film study bullshit I have to say, right out, this movie is fucking hilarious. It is one to be seen in a crowd or to have a bunch of your friends over for drinks aplenty, because Beerfest is a party and it is, most of all, a celebration of that wonderful elixir, the nectar of the gods itself. I’m talking about BEER!

Score - 7.5

George

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