Do you really need a description of what goes on in a movie called Frat
Party with an IMDb score of 3.1? Based on the name of this film alone, I'll bet you can guess that
it will be passed over at Oscar time.
Duffy is a senior who is graduating one day and getting married the
next. His fiancée gives him permission to skip the rehearsal dinner in
order to attend the last big frat party. Meanwhile, her rich father is
unhappy with his daughter's morganatic marriage and schemes to get Duffy
in trouble at the party, thus keeping him from making it to the church.
This frees up the daughter to marry a guy the father approves of.
Despite what I wrote in the first sentence, this movie is actually a
little different from what you might expect from a movie named Frat Party.
The actual party encompasses only about three minutes of running time. The
essence of the story is based on whether Duffy, a reformed bad boy who
found Ms Right and is really in love, will demonstrate that he can be
trusted by getting to the church on time.
Since the cast consists entirely of unfamiliar faces, it was only the
2009 date which kept me from assuming that it this was one of those
forgotten 1980's youthploitation T&A films that used to run again and
again on HBO back in the day. You could rename this Hardbodies 5, run it
in a 1980s film retrospective, and nobody would ever be the wiser. The
strengths of the film are: (1) a sympathetic and realistic leading
character; (2) plenty of T&A. The weaknesses are (1) a trite and
predictable plot; (2) some poor performances in minor roles; (3) a lack of
comedy. That last one is the real deal-breaker for me. As I see it, this
kind of raunchy film needs to be funny, and this one really isn't. Its
strength - the depth of the main character - turns out to be its weakness
as well. The film just takes itself too seriously for a film named Frat
Party.
I assume you would watch this for the T&A, which is minimally
acceptable, and the humor, which is not, this making the overall package a
bit below the minimum standard I expect from my youthploitation!
