MARKED MOVIES

Director: Ben Palmer.
Screenplay: Iain Morris, Damon Beesley.
Starring: James Buckley, Simon Bird, Blake Harrison, Joe Thomas, Emily Head, Lydia Rose Bewley, Laura Haddock, Tamla Kari, Jessica Knappett, Theo Barklem-Biggs, Theo James, Anthony Head, Greg Davies.

High-School Teen comedies of this type have been making regular appearances at our cinema screens. The “American Pie” series and “Superbad” are probably the most successful but although this may not reach the heights as those -in terms of revenue – it is a far better film.

Dumped by love of his life Carli (Emily Head), end of schooler Simon (Joe Thomas), along with mates Will (Simon Bird), Jay (James Buckley) and Neil (Blake Harrison), decides to head for Malia hoping for “sun, sand, sex, sea and sex”. Cue crap hotels, embarrassing sunburn, willing girls, alcohol and a boat party of a lifetime.

What makes this film work so well is the appeal of it’s well drawn characters. The camaraderie between the four friends is entirely believable and each of the performances are spot on. It’s hard to find good comedy that has you laughing out loud these days, and even harder for it to keep the jokes flowing. This does both. Within the first ten minutes you’ll get the gist of where this is heading when it depicts one of the main characters wearing a snorkel and using a pile of cooked ham to indulge his pleasures while watching Internet porn. As if that’s not enough, his mum walks in. This is pretty much the level of vulgarity throughout, but make no mistake, it’s side-splitting stuff. At one point, when our four protagonists have seemingly found love, the film looks like it may be losing it’s momentum as it delves more into serious relationship territory but this lull is short lived and the profane foursome begin to spout their quick-witted lued jokes and sexual behaviour once again. It’s when it gets back to doing what it does best that the film still manages to finish on a high note.

I didn’t see much of the TV series from 2008, of which this originated from, but I will definitely rectify that and have a look back. If this is anything to go by, then the series should be a treat also.
A consistently hilarious little comedy.

Mark Walker

This entry was posted on February 8, 2012 at 9:31 pm and is filed under Comedy with tags 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.