Who the hell is Tom Green? That's the question most audiences will walk out of "Stealing Harvard" demanding an answer to. Not because they want to shake his hand, pat him on the back, or otherwise congratulate him for his sterling work, but more likely because they want to punch his lights out.
Fans of junk cinema already know who Green is. He's the writer-director-star of "Freddy Got Fingered", a film of such monumentally bad taste that it featured a scene in which one character got an elephant sperm shower.
Love it or loathe it, there was no denying what film's shock value (that's "value" in the loosest sense). But if "Stealing Harvard" is shocking, it's only in how utterly boring and incompetent it manages to be.
Here's the pitch. John (Jason Lee) is about to get married to prissy girlfriend Elaine (Leslie Mann). He's got $30,000 dollars saved for the wedding and is ready to settle back into a quiet, non-eventful life of middle-class domesticity.
Then his white trash niece wins a place at Harvard University and John suddenly remembers that he once promised he'd pay her tuition fees if she ever got out of the trailer park. A promise is a promise, so he calls in borderline psycho-geek Duff (Tom Green) to come up with a plan to steal the cash. What can go wrong?
Ditching the gross-out of "Freddy" (note the kiddie-friendly 12A rating), this shambolic attempt at lightweight juvenile comedy is the movie equivalent of a silent armpit fart.
It's no-win stuff. It's not offensive enough to appeal to Green's (ever-decreasing) fan-base, nor witty enough to convince anyone else.
Still, what else should we expect from a director whose CV includes "Superstar" and "The Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy".
Stealing Harvard (2003)
