Beerfest 2006

Peter Debruge, Miami Herald: Beerfest features more beer consumed on screen than any movie since Strange Brew, while simultaneously offering less in the way of redeeming social value than Freddy Got Fingered. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Beerfest is one sloppy comedy, but the lads of the comedy troupe Broken Lizard don't know when to say when in their pursuit of the idiotic laugh. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: Beerfest unfolds like a decent college kegger, the best moments coming late in the carousal, as more suds are quaffed, inhibitions loosen up and everything starts seeming funnier. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: At 111 minutes, the movie is too slackly paced to build up enough momentum; like the characters they play, these guys don't know when to call it a night. Read more

Joanne Kaufman, Wall Street Journal: Ok, so maybe you don't absolutely have to have a Y chromosome and be 14 years old (or have the mind of a 14-year-old) to appreciate the freshmanic humor that is Beerfest. But, oh, does it help. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: Beerfest is an excuse to get happily dumb and decadent, which would be great if the movie was actually funny. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: If you like to drink Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, you'll probably like this movie. If you're a cognac person, the scene where the great-grandmother performs a sex act on a sausage may not be refined enough for your tastes. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: Even in a wacky, stupid comedy like this you have to have some thread of a plot. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: [Beerfest] gets off to a shaky start and sputters to a conclusion at least half an hour later than it should, but it's got a creamy middle. Read more

Annemarie Moody, Arizona Republic: Beerfest serves up a keg's worth of fun. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Making a comedy that celebrates binge drinking and cretinous behavior isn't a crime against nature. Making one that's as brutally unfunny as Beerfest is. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Scene by scene it's funny enough, but it goes exactly where you expect it to go, which makes the last third a lot less funny than the first two-thirds. Read more

Scott Brown, Entertainment Weekly: I felt oddly respected: Neck-deep in barley and boobs, marinated in urine, Beerfest panders shamelessly to the 15-year-old in this 30-year-old... without assuming he is a 15-year-old. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: The script, cowritten by all the members, is too sloshy and bleary-eyed to throw any darts that hit anything but the wall. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: Like just about every other American screen comedy of the moment, it's far too long in the tooth, with a scattershot final half-hour that seems the work of an editor battling a bad hangover. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: Accept Beer Fest for the ludicrous frat-boy fantasyland it strives to portray and there's a chance you might laugh at most of it. There's a better chance that you'll hate yourself for it the next morning. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: It's amusing on occasion, but also garbled, repetitious and potentially offensive. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Among the cast, Chandrasekhar is easily the funniest of the Lizards, though in fairness, each has his moments. The movie does, too; just expect them to shrink exponentially depending on your level of sobriety. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: In telling the story of a secret Fight Club-style drinking competition that literally takes place beneath Munich's famous Oktoberfest, it hopes to become the ultimate frat-boy beer-drinking cult movie. I don't think it gets there. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Bill Zwecker, Chicago Sun-Times: My best suggestion for people who insist on going to see this immense waste of time? Go drunk. Read more

Jennie Punter, Globe and Mail: Watching endless scenes of sport drinking gets tiresome and by the time the film reaches the final competition, you might feel too bloated to laugh. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: A movie that feels as if it was conceived, executed, edited and ultimately released by people in an advanced state of gassy inebriation. Read more

David Jenkins, Time Out: Beerfest is a film that appears to have been conceived on the back of a beermat and its trashy direction, nonexistent plot and dismal comic mugging would seem to suggest that preparations progressed no further. Read more

Scott Bowles, USA Today: Beerfest plays like a party that's gone on too long, when the buzz has worn off and the hangover starts to set in. Read more

Brian Lowry, Variety: There's roughly a pint of quality comedy rattling around in this keg-sized movie. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: An hour and 50 minutes! Were they trying for the War and Peace of chugger flicks? Read more