No.298 : We the Party (2012)

We the Party at the IMDb

I had mild hopes for this film having looked up the poster and some lesser reviews. Would it be a fresh and funny take on the issues of race, growing up and having a good time in a multi-ethnic Los Angeles High School? Sadly these hopes were dashed after five minutes when five diverse friends got together to make a bet : Who can lose their virginity by prom night? I appreciate teenage boys think only of getting laid but surely a slightly different take could have been offered when visiting this tired and overpopulated genre?

To be fair it isn’t the usual frat style film with gross out gags and a lot of nudity. This was a more leisurely take with the five lads going about their conquests in different ways. They all learned a little, gained some respect for the ladies and mostly got a little love.

The guys hold a pre-prom party and hand out flyers with ‘We the Party’ suggesting that they are hip dudes. We know they are not and the usual high school favourites of bully, jock, popular girl and stoner all have to be won over before the party is a success and our guys become bone fide playas.

There is a bit of learning too with an ethics teacher trying to get the kids to understand what is valuable in life - not cars and houses, but leaving a legacy like Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jnr. Our crew take this on board and one delivers his own take on the environment to great acclaim. I’d bet in the real world he’d have been soundly beaten afterwards but it was well scripted and performed.

The pace is sedate at best with long scenes that go nowhere accompanied to a smooth R&B soundtrack. Most of theses scenes involve fine young ladies in bikinis romping around in swimming pools so you can understand that they are playing to their audience of horny teenage guys - and me.

There isn’t much in the way of peril with the $20 a head bet never going to be disastrous for anyone. Some of it is however a bit on the nose with a long scene with a guy looking up girls’ skirts with a camera on his boot , complete with crotch shots, seriously misjudged.

There are some moral values employed with a school project centred around finding out the stories of homeless people. This sits awkwardly alongside the horny youth story line but you can’t say there isn’t something for everyone in here. The concert using their footage to a rap with an orchestral arrangement was great and it seemed all was going well until the prom money was stolen! Can it be recovered and will all of our cast, including the fat white girl in the body cast, find love?

Director Mario Van Peebles manages to get most of his extended family into the cast alongside a hardly seen Snoop Dogg who looked fetching in his pig tails.

Overall this was a decent slice of life with some good academic scenes set along side things more dubious. The young and mostly good looking cast did well with thin material and although everyone grew a bit I’m happy to say that I learned nothing. The soundtrack wasn’t my kind of thing but it was easy to get immersed in the beautiful people in sunny L.A and as a time passer you‘ll do a lot worse.

Best Bit : Pool Party  ’W’ Rating : 17/23.