Lindsay Rose
This article contains spoilers! If you haven’t seen it yet, I’d advise you to go do so.
Where to begin? An empty house for a weekend, unlimited booze, an ex- army trained drug dealer, 2 DJ’s, 12 year old security guards, a blow up bouncy castle, a gnome full of ecstasy and a nerdy AV kid hired to stay sober and film the whole thing, what could go wrong, right? I’ll admit, going into the movie I had a few doubts. There’s nothing
wrong with your classic party movie once in a while, but was I really going to
pay $13 to watch a bunch of kids get wasted? No thank you. But I can honestly
tell you, as I sat with some of my best friends in that packed theatre and
again with Laura Murphy (the second time, yes I did go and see it twice) I have
never laughed so hard.
To start, the movie does a great job of going in depth with the characters, yet still giving the movie its “classic party movie” feeling. You meet the characters and get a great sense of what they’re like, and their friendship with each other. Ultimately, getting to know those character’s traits and quirks ends up giving you a better understanding
of why things turned out the way they did. They also show a great dynamic of a
typical friend group, which makes the entire situation seem perfectly
realistic.
The realistic nature of the movie is the second reason it is so great. While watching the trailers, it’s hard to believe that you, or anyone for that matter, could let their own party get so out of control. But the reoccurring theme of peer pressure (especially from every end of the spectrum) is the primary reason things escalate. The main character,
Thomas, is initially pressured by his irresponsible friend, Costa, to throw a
birthday party while Thomas’s parents are away on vacation. He is then directed
by the fact that if Thomas were to throw the party, he’d be giving all of their
unpopular friends a chance at getting a shot with girls who had never paid
attention to them throughout high school. Later, when the party begins to spin
out of control, Thomas is ready to take it down a notch. But with praise and
approval from the girl of his dreams and an infamous college baseball star,
he’s once again weakened from his initial judgement and good decision making.
Although Thomas knows it’s probably a bad idea, he goes against his morals
thinking it will help him to achieve something he wants, which is something
most teenagers can relate to.
The fact that this movie is based on a true story is what makes this so insane and believable. In 2006, Corey Worthington threw a “project x” where one death was recorded, the dog squad and air ring of the police force were called, neighbours cars and police cruisers were destroyed, and he was charged with $20,000 in fines. The only difference is, while Thomas is aiming for good intentions and is sorry for the trouble he has caused to those around him, Corey is a total brat. He appeared on an Australian news show wearing a baseball cap and obnoxious yellow sunglasses and told the host “I won’t take off my sunglasses and apologize, because I’m famous now.”
All in all, I highly recommend this movie. Just a word of advice though: make sure you have plans after because I guarantee you aren’t going to want to go home and take a nap. It’ll keep you laughing for the full hour and twenty eight minutes, and make you want to go out and wreak some havoc of your own afterward. (Maybe not blow torching a neighbourhood or driving a BMW into a swimming pool kind of havoc, but you understand.) Oh, and if anyone decides to throw their own ragger, (project x style) you know I’ll be there.