Slackers outdo themselves in 'Accepted'

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 18, 2006 at midnight

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If I were to tell you that Accepted is a bit like Revenge of the Nerds- meets-Animal House, I'd be right, but I also might be raising your hopes a little too high.

Here's the actual deal: Accepted generates some laughs and displays the right kind of shaggy spirit for a slacker comedy, but it's not enough of a groundbreaker to attain standout status.

Still, the movie at least grows out of something real, the anxiety most high-school kids experience when it comes to getting into the colleges of their choice - or perhaps any college at all.

At the beginning of the movie, Justin Long's Bartleby Gaines finds himself in the unenviable position of being without an acceptance letter at the end of his senior year.

So Bartleby does what any resourcefully devious movie teenager would do: He invents a school, sends himself an acceptance letter and departs for the world of higher education at the South Harmon Institute of Technology. The school's acronym provides a basis for one of the movie's running gags.

The twist here involves a lack of foresight. Bartleby persuades one of his pals (Jonah Hill) to design a Web site for the school but doesn't realize that someone besides his parents might visit. Suddenly, a ton of other students (and I use the term loosely) takes advantage of the faux school's open-door policy.

They all show up at the abandoned psychiatric hospital that Bartleby has tried to turn into an impromptu college. He then must persuade a disgraced academic (Lewis Black) to pose as the school's dean.

The school for misfits seems to be thriving on parties and mayhem when a real neighboring college gets wind of the shenanigans and tries to put a stop to them, mostly through the efforts of an officious dean (Anthony Heald).

Predictably, Bartleby becomes a kind of subversive leader, so much so that he steals the blond girlfriend (Blake Lively) of a BMOC fraternity president, a twist that's credible partly because Long ably stands in an apparently endless line of charismatic big-screen wiseguys.

Director Steven Pink, who previously worked as a writer on movies such as High Fidelity and Grosse Point Blank, understands the basic requirements of a comedy about outcasts, and each of the movie's characters seems to pander to the audience's slacker instincts.

Rory (Maria Thayer) spent her whole life hoping to attend Yale but didn't make it. Hands (Columbus Short) lost a shot at a football scholarship when he blew out his knee.

Not content to go for cheap laughs, the movie ultimately tries to wave a banner for the slacker ethos, something about the value of free expression. How this jibes with the school's thorough lack of inquiring minds remains a mystery, but it doesn't stop the movie from needlessly applauding its own values. A major activity at South Harmon might be passing out at poolside.

It takes a bit of generosity to say that half of the movie's 90 minutes proves funny. But, hey, it's August, and I'm more than willing to grade on the curve.

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