Film: Beerfest

Director: Jay Chandrasekhar

Cast: Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske, Will Forte, Ralf Moeller, Mo’Nique, and Eric Christian Olsen, Juergen Prochnow, Cloris Leachman

Rating: 1.5/5

After the smash hit Super Troopers, the Broken Lizard group are back with Beerfest; this film is however, far from being a smash hit, especially in India. There is a lack of a good plot and the acting is mediocre. It has nothing to offer except for gallons of beer.

After their grandfather’s demise, brothers Todd and Jan Wolfhouse (Erik Stolhanske and Paul Soter) are off to Germany to scatter their grandfather’s ashes at his birthplace. They soon find themselves led to the lair of ‘Beerfest’, a beer games competition. Though there is German lineage in them, the brothers receive a cold shoulder from their German cousins. To hold the family name high, they compete in the fest, just to be defeated.

Determined to win the following year and defend their family honour, the brothers pull together a dream team, which includes Barry Badrinath (Jay Chandrasekhar), a skilled player with a not so happening life; Landfill (Kevin Heffernan), the guzzler and Fink (Steve Lemme), a lab technician.   With the dream team all set, what follows is a rigorous beer guzzling training session, using all they have to ensure a win. 

Now here’s the crunch – this story flows with so much disinterest, that you might end up falling asleep even before it is over. The humour is incomprehensible, not because it is some pseudo intellectual joke, simply because it is hardly humorous. There is beer and more beer in every single scene, till a point where you have your head throbbing and want some for yourself (Smart way to boost beer sales). 

There is a fine line between an actor turning into a caricature and essaying the character to the T. The Germans speak their English with a relaxed tongue; it is unique and sounds appealing. The actors actually manage to create caricatures (If intentional, great!), which seems futile. The film is pure nonsense and is great just for home viewing.

The editing is smooth, however it is certain scenes that seem bogus and could have been masqueraded, that kill the film. The acting is mediocre, what is not appreciated is the creation of the caricatures. The special effects seem slapdash. The dialogues are loose, lines like “Yaa, it looks like his head is covered in pubic hair…but it works, ya, because you’ve got a dick face.” or “Oh that’s rich! I’ve got a cowboy on one side and an Indian on the other! It’s like the wild west” and “I always sleep better with a little sausage in me” that are ideally meant to be funny, just sound gross and highly dreary.

In this sort of a film, you don’t go in expecting a beautifully told epic, understandably so. That still does not provide enough reason to give the audiences an average film. I am positive the film would have sounded great on paper, but fails to create any magic on screen.

This is purely a teen movie, so expect the teen audience to be in a majority. The film lacks the marketing push and the buzz, so expect the business to be below average.

If you have absolutely nothing to do and don’t mind watching two hours of gaseous laughs (for the heck of it), then Beerfest is for you. This one is certainly not for me!