Director: Alex Gregory, Peter Huyck
Starring: Jason Sudeikis, Tyler Labine, Leslie Bibb
Lake Bell, Nick Kroll, Michelle Borth, Martin Starr
Year: 2011
You can’t just re-imagine Big Chill but have terrible actors and only talk about sex, that doesn’t work. Beside Still Waters tried and succeeded because they kept it simple, kept it honest, went deeper, and didn’t try to be anything but an indie version of something that worked so well before. A Good Old Fashioned Orgy tries to delve the deeps, but can’t, and only turns out to be surface level raunch-com that we’ve seen in a thousand movies before and hated every time
As Eric and his friends reach their 30s, they start to realize that they haven’t reached anything at all. They hate their jobs, hate their daily lives, and only enjoy weekends at Eric’s dad’s house outside the city, where the parties are epic and the memories are many. But when his dad puts the house on the market, Eric knows that he has to grow up …but not before throwing one last amazing bash at the old place. This time he wants it to be more intimate, more real, more connecting, a once-in-a-lifetime experience that they will never forget. Oh yeah, and he wants everyone to have sex with everyone else, because the last bash is an orgy.
There is some heart here, some attempt at something more meaningful, something sad about growing up and losing touch and moving on. That message is there, which makes this something different from Old School or the like, it isn’t just a comedy, it is more, bu that “more” fails rather than hits home, and that’s the film’s biggest problem. When its warmth doesn’t work, the movie just lands in a puddle of sex, stays there, and calls it a day, failing to fulfill its promise and not becoming the story that it could have been. Blame the actors for one; they *really* sucked. Blame the writing too, because Sudeikis has real talent, he can lead a rom-com or raunch-com, just watch Sleeping with Other People or We’re The Millers, but Orgy ain’t it. This is the only film Gregory & Huyck ever directed, they started & stopped here, and that’s the last red flag.
My rating: ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆