Director: Andrew Mogel, Jarrad Paul
Starring: Jack Black, James Marsden, Kathryn Hahn
Year: 2015
The D Train is basically the dirtier version of every 80s movie you ever saw. It takes the music and the life lessons, adds in anal sex, and calls it a comedy, not stopping to wonder and/or care if you even wanted to think about Jack Black getting it in the butt. My work is done, you are now prepared to watch this movie, (or not); the rest of this review will be trivial, but I guess I’ll write it anyway. For what it’s worth, 80s movies do leave out a lot of the gory details of whatever tale they are trying to weave, skipping over the hurdles as if ever every film was a track star in tight shorts. In reality, problems arise, people have sex, heroes poop, and happy endings can be messy.
Decades after the glory days of high school, Dan Landsman is still living in the past. It’s not like he was cool back then, it’s that he’s still trying to make the same friends that would never hang out with him after class, he’s just older and plumper now. Dan is the lead dog of the alumni committee, and he also spearheads the class reunion, which is coming up. This year, he wants it to be big, and when he sees former big-man-on-campus Oliver Lawless on TV, he knows just what he has to do; fake a business trip, fly to L.A., meet with Lawless, convince him to come to PA for the weekend, and save the proverbial day. Dan will have to lie a whole hell of a lot in order to make that all happen, and he might have to do some drugs as well, but sacrifices must be made, and the reunion must be a hit.
That was the what struck me the most about this film, and probably what I enjoyed the most as well; the idea of making an 80s movie with some of the gratuitous nature brought to the foreground instead of letting it be glossed over, of making more of a mess than is typical from the genre. Count on Jack Black to stir shit up a bit, and he definitely does, bringing a funky character to the film who you can’t help but root for. James Marsden was solid as well, as the hunky Oliver, the stud who peaked too soon and who now is forced to overcompensate for his lack of happiness. The D Train isn’t anything special, but it is a ballsy effort to shake things around, to make audiences uncomfortable, but to provide some entertainment at the same time.
My rating: ☆ ☆ ☆