American Pie (1999)
1999
R
95 Minutes
At a high-school party, four friends find that losing their collective virginity isn't as easy as they had thought. But they still believe that they need to do so before college. To motivate themse...
User Review
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WHAT I LIKED: A film about a group of teenage boys forming a pact to lose their virginity in the summer before college could have very easily become a disgusting, misogynist mess, but 'American Pie,' just dodges that bullet by continually ridiculing its characters, and by concluding on a point that's actually about something more than the cheap premise. Yes, rather than indulging their troubled and ridiculous ideas around what sex is all about, every plan they have to win over girls to join them in bed completely backfires and exposes them as the fools that they are being. There's Chris' plan to romance his way with a singer that blows up in his face when she witnesses him bragging about her to his baseball friends. There's Steve's empty bragging and Kevin's awkwardness with his girlfriend, and then of course there's central character Jim's catastrophic attempts to win over Nadia whilst filming them and broadcasting himself stripping all over the internet. These are all heinous acts which lack respect for the women involved, but they are all brilliantly undermined for us to laugh at, and they all lead to a concluding realisation about the important thing being their relationships with girls and between the friends rather than the sex itself. That makes it a comedy that could have easily fallen flat and even been rather disgusting into something that's not only passable, but also rather amusing.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: Because the characters are largely there for pity and ridicule for the majority of the film, you don't particularly get the engagement of rooting for or sympathising with them. Some of the humour does cross the line into the cringe too, as Jim's filming attempts are disgusting and hard to brush off even when they do blow up in his face.
VERDICT: A film that borders on blasphemy but largely ducks out by ridiculing its central characters and concluding on the right note, 'American Pie,' may not be genius cinema, but it's an enjoyable comedy for the most part.0 member like this review.
