Our hero is Ryan, a nerdy accordion player who is starting to outgrow his dweebish friends including Pinkman, doing a poor man’s Jeff Spicoli, and Tom Hanks’ son. He lives next door to Maggie and the two talk across their unfeasibly close balconies. From the first scene you know that they will end up together, but we’ve got 90 minutes to fill so let’s have them as just good friends for now.
Ryan fancies the high school sweetheart in the shape of the unobtainable Ashley, whilst high school jock Franco likes Maggie. With both men having no chance of landing their chosen babe they hatch a plan to help each other pimp out their friend so that some stranger can get his hole. Lovely.
There are some slim slide plots including Pinkman’s quest for a bit of a statue and a funny and sadistic games teacher played by that guy off ‘The West Wing’ who throws baseballs at the kids and tells them to “Walk it off”. Grrr hope he gets his comeuppance!
The sordid plan goes well but Ryan soon realises the hot girl isn’t all that. She has a hairy back and scabby feet. Seems nice enough though, until she disparages a midget at a carnival and pukes up, so she deserves all she gets. Meanwhile Ryan is feeding Franco lines so that he can make some headway with Maggie.
This involves the world’s oldest computer and a scene ripped off, fully intact from ‘Roxanne’, but soon we’re off to the prom. Who will end up with whom and will the mildly bad people get a fitting finale? Of course!
This was mild ‘12’ certificate fun but there was enough subversive humour to keep me entertained. Most of it was due to Pinkman in his first role, who has most of the best lines and, it looked like, the most fun. The lead is a bit dull and the hottest girl in school wasn’t all that - the blossoming next door neighbour looked a better bet from the start.
It was hard to care about a load of white privileged kids having their fancy prom but there were enough laughs to keep me invested. Not subtle stuff you understand but when the old woman farted when getting lifted to the toilet I did smirk. I’m not proud.
The cast was largely good and I enjoyed seeing several familiar faces including Champ Kind sporting the last traces of his hair.
The values espoused were dubious at best but love won out in the end and all the bad people got humiliated in public so that’s all right then. I don’t think Ryan earned his happy ending as he was a right prick throughout but when you mix a formula you have to stick to the recipe!
Best Bit :Prom over a swimming pool - what can go wrong? ‘W’ Rating : 15/23
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