Film Reviews

Accepted

• Rating:
• Director: Steve Pink.
• Starring: Justin Long, Jonah Mill, Blake Lively, Columbus Short.
• Details: US / 90mins (12A).

Teenage flimflammer Bartleby Gaines (Long) is rejected from every college he's applied to and, not to disappoint his parents, invents his own fictional college, The South Hardin Institute Of Technology (S.H.I.T).However, when other college and high school dropouts enrol for classes, Bartleby is forced to make it real - a college for students, run by students - and rents an old mental institution with his $10,000 tuition money given to him by his gullible parents. How long can something this big be sustained? Accepted tries to be the new Animal House but looks and feels like a Revenge Of The Nerds rehash; toned down, slicked back and made into a cutesy, shy, inoffensive movie that all the family can enjoy - that doesn't sound like a college movie to me. You would expect more from Pink - John Cusack's co-writer on Grosse Point Blank and High Fidelity - but, in Pink's defence, he had nothing to do with the script and is lumbered with an ho-hum, run-of-the-mill, straight back and sides 'comedy' from three newbies: two first-time writers and another who penned Herbie Fully Loaded, which wouldn't fill me with a lot of confidence. If "S.H.I.T" - the rallying cry of the students - is the best joke, it doesn't say a lot about the others and its constant repetition (ad infinitum/nauseam) becomes infuriating. Accepted is just another in a long list of comedies that barely scrape the requirements needed: three gags these days seem to ensure a green light in Hollywood.

Review by Gavin Burke