OLD SCHOOL

CAST: Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Jeremy Piven, Ellen Pompeo, Juliette Lewis, Leah Remini, Patrick Cranshaw, Perrey Reeves, Elisha Cuthbert, Craig Kilborn, Seann William Scott, Andy Dick, Snoop Dogg, James Carville

DIRECTOR: Todd Phillips

" ‘Old School,’ from the team behind 2000's hit comedy ‘Road Trip,’ would be just another vacuous addition to the already engorged frat film genre if it weren't for the inspired casting. It's a joy to watch the fast-talking Vince Vaughn take his largely untapped comedic talents out for a walk. And Luke Wilson (‘Legally Blonde’), always easy on the eye, plays a great straight man in this otherwise mediocre new-millennium version of ‘National Lampoon's Animal House.’ But it's former ‘Saturday Night Live’ linchpin Will Ferrell, launching his full-time movie career, who provides the genuinely side-splitting moments that make ‘Old School’ worth the price of admission." --Megan Lehmann, The New York Post

"I can now divide my life into the years before I saw Will Ferrell completely naked and, hopefully, the many rewarding years beyond…It's part of an extremely funny and, of course, socially unredeemable comedy from Todd Phillips, the writer-director responsible for 2000's ‘Road Trip.’ In terms of sheer belly-laugh count, this one's in the same plentiful company as ‘There's Something About Mary’ and ‘Road Trip’…Wilson makes a likable romantic interest. Vaughn is mischievously amusing…But this is definitely Ferrell's movie… his shockproof naivete becomes the movie's endless source of energy." --Desson Howe, The Washington Post

"Your enjoyment of the new comedy ‘Old School’ may hinge on whether you find the sight of Will Ferrell running down a street in nothing more than black socks and shoes uproariously funny, inexplicably tragic or a little of both…Wilson has ineffable charm and Ferrell natural comic timing, but Vaughn, whose hangover stare recalls Walter Matthau in the '60s comedy ‘A Guide for the Married Man,’ makes the ideal poster boy for the happily whipped…As it pans out, Phillips never goes fully for broke and even Ferrell, who gets the benefit of the film's more robust routines fails to scale the lunatic heights of his ‘Saturday Night Live’ glory." --Manohla Dargis, The Los Angeles Times

"Mr. Vaughn's coercive cool gives a cubic centimeter of angry polish to Beanie, although his lowlife charm may be nothing new, especially to those who've seen ‘Swingers.’ In fact, it's welcome, and his way with a line still works…But the movie, such as it is, belongs to Mr. Ferrell. He sacrifices Frank's dignity ounce by ounce, and Frank hasn't much to begin with. Just when you think he's utterly bereft of it, he finds yet another way to lower himself further." --Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times

"Kathy Bates is getting plenty of credit for her fearless flash of nudity in ‘About Schmidt,’ but there'll be no award noms for Will Ferrell and his commitment to bare-buttocks performance in Old School…in this sloppy, slaphappy production--a variation on all boys-will-be-jerks frat-house comedies throughout recorded history--he spends long, long minutes with cheeks to the wind…Ferrell lets his freak flag fly and Vaughn unlooses a notably funny, light-on-his-feet lunkheadedness as a successful entrepreneur leashed by a wife (Leah Remini) and kids. Wilson, meanwhile, though not an especially impish house brother, is nevertheless treated to a fine, frowsy turn by the always surprising Juliette Lewis as a fiancée who ends up having a sexual appetite no simple frat boy could ever sate." -- Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

"There's a good movie to be made about 30-something dudes who refuse to leave their college days behind, and for its first half hour, ‘Old School’ bids to be that movie. But when it tries to tether its hi-jinks to a plot, this reconstructed ‘Animal House’ falls flat.
…Ferrell as the house-husband whose universe is bounded by Home Depot and the Olive Garden taps into an elemental male dread, and he steals the show whenever he peels away his civility (and clothing). But the sub-plot in which the fraternity must fight for its charter changes the movie from a squeamish-making satire of arrested development to something all-too-familiar." --Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch