Movie Review Slackers

Slackers (2002) 

Directed by Dewey Nicks 

Written by David H. Steinberg 

Starring Devon Sawa, Michael C. Maronna, Jason Segal, Jason Schwartzman

Release Date February 1st, 2002

Published February 4th, 2002 

Oh wow, another movie set on a college campus we haven't seen one of those in what... two or three weeks? To be fair Orange County wasn't entirely set on a college campus but I think you get my point about this being much tread upon ground.

Slackers, not to be confused with the Richard Linklater classic Slacker, stars Devon Sawa as Dave who with the help of his friends, played by Michael C. Maronna and Jason Segel, is the biggest scammer on campus. Despite the title, Dave and his friends actually work pretty hard on their scams to steal test papers and cheat on exams. They work so hard on them in fact it made me wonder if the title was an idea from the movie marketing department and not the writers director or producer.

I had a lot of time to ponder things like the title, the amount of salt on my popcorn and the calories in my Pepsi because I didn't spend any time laughing at this early worst of the year candidate.

Poor Jason Schwartzman, when last we saw him he was in the brilliant film Rushmore. In Slackers he portrays the most unlikable movie character since the babies of Baby Geniuses. Schwartzman spends the entire movie being the creepy stalker of Angela played by Model James King, collecting her hair and forming it into a doll and building a creepy shrine in his dorm room. Why anyone thought any of this was funny I have no idea. Don't get me wrong, I think anything can be funny if done right but if done wrong as it is in Slackers, it's just painful and hard to watch.

The saddest thing about Slackers though is its star Devon Sawa who I really like as an actor. He was fantastic in Final Destination and even in the God-awful Idle Hands. Sawa is charismatic and funny with a great deal of potential as a comedic leading man. Let's hope he can avoid movies like Slackers in the future.

Movie Review: Extreme Ops

Extreme Ops (2002) 

Directed by Christian Duguay 

Written by Michael Zaidan 

Starring Devon Sawa, Bridget Wilson-Sampras, Rupert Graves, Rufus Sewell

Release Date November 27th, 2002 

Published November 27th, 2002 

I am not a big fan of extreme sports. Any sport that wasn't begun before 1960 is not a sport. But I must admit that when it's done well it can be exciting to watch, but still not a sport. The new movie Extreme Ops is about a group of extreme sports enthusiasts who accidentally stumble upon a group of Serbian terrorists.

That would never happen in football.

While on location shooting a commercial for a digital video camera, a group of extreme sportsters head to Austria to film the most dangerous stunt they could think of, skiing and snowboarding ahead of a hard-charging avalanche. Included in this ragtag bunch is the director Ian (Rufus Sewell) his partner and money man Jeffrey (Rupert Graves), the cameraman Will (Devon Sawa), a punk skateboarder named Kittie (Jana Pallaskie) another punk skateboarder named Silo (Joe Absolem) and Chloe (Bridget Wilson Sampras, smoking hot) a gold medal winning downhill skier. 

Ian does not want Chloe to be a part of the shoot but Jeffrey has hired her as the star of the commercial. The stunt is far more difficult than the downhill skiing Chloe is used and at first she can't keep up. If only that were the biggest problem. Instead they accidentally stumbled upon the mountain hideout of a Serbian terrorist who was believed to be dead. So obviously since the crew has seen him and Will actually gets a picture of him, they must be killed before they can reveal his location.

Yes the story is as ridiculous as it sounds but director Christian Duguay knows it's ridiculous and doesn't waste to much time setting up the terrorist plot, preferring to focus on the awesome skiing and snowboarding stunts. The difference between the extreme sports antics in Extreme Ops and those of other big dumb action movies like XXX is that Ops knows how ridiculous they are and embraces them. The charismatic cast perform the stunts with a wink to the audience that let's us in on the joke of the story and allows to relax and have fun with it.

Devon Sawa is one of my favorite young actors and his natural charisma is all over his character here. Sawa plays Will as a guy you would love to hang out with, get drunk or stoned and go do something incredibly dangerous and stupid with. And Bridget Wilson-Sampras who in the past has been accused of being too pretty for the plain characters she is supposed to be playing, here plays a character who is supposed to be hot. She's an actress in a TV commercial and an athlete. Newcomer Jana Pallaskie is stuck in the thankless Clea Duvall role. The “beautiful on the inside grumpy Goth chick” that has become a cliché. Pallaskie does what she can with the role and manages to come off as likable and funny.

Extreme Ops is a B movie that knows it's a B movie. Director Christian Duguay never has any pretense of trying to create art or memorable film. He is making a movie that is a series of stunts and excellent camerawork and both are spectacular. There are moments where things are obviously too dangerous and the filmmakers were forced to use bad CGI effects, but, for the most part, these are awesome stuntmen and women pulling off real stunts.

Real cool stunts.

Movie Review Slackers

Slackers (2002) 

Directed by Dewey Nicks

Written by David H Steinberg

Starring Jason Schwartzman, Devon Sawa, Jason Segal, Laura Prepon, Jamie King 

Release Date February 1st, 2002 

Published February 2nd, 2002 

Oh wow, another movie set on a college campus we haven't seen one of those in what... two or three weeks? To be fair Orange County wasn't entirely set on a college campus but I think you get my point about this being much tread upon ground.

Slackers, not to be confused with the Richard Linklater classic Slacker, stars Devon Sawa as Dave who with the help of his friends, played by Michael C. Maronna and Jason Segel, is the biggest scammer on campus. Despite the title, Dave and his friends actually work pretty hard on their scams to steal test papers and cheat on exams. They work so hard on them in fact it made me wonder if the title was an idea from the movie marketing department and not the writers director or producer.

I had a lot of time to ponder things like the title, the amount of salt on my popcorn and the calories in my Pepsi because I didn't spend any time laughing at this early worst of the year candidate.

Poor Jason Schwartzman, when last we saw him he was in the brilliant film Rushmore. In Slackers he portrays the most unlikable movie character since the babies of Baby Geniuses. Schwartzman spends the entire movie being the creepy stalker of Angela played by Model James King, collecting her hair and forming it into a doll and building a creepy shrine in his dorm room. Why anyone thought any of this was funny I have no idea. Don't get me wrong, I think anything can be funny if done right but if done wrong as it is in Slackers, it's just painful and hard to watch.

The saddest thing about Slackers though is its star Devon Sawa who I really like as an actor. He was fantastic in Final Destination and even in the God-awful Idle Hands. Sawa is charismatic and funny with a great deal of potential as a comedic leading man. Let's hope he can avoid movies like Slackers in the future.