By Robert Scucci | Published
The beginnings brought us a deluge of college party films like National Lampoon’s Van Wilder And Old schoolbut I’m here to tell you that you’re doing yourself a disservice if you’ve never seen 1994. UCPwhich is by far the best film of its kind. Offering nothing more than a simple “we have to throw an epic party to save our house” plot, UCP establishes its premise without condescension toward its audience and has no room for throwaway jokes due to its tight 79-minute runtime.
A film like UCP which is based on such a simple premise should not be overlooked as mindless entertainment, because sometimes we all just need a quick adventure across the quad while a group of vegan protesters try to run us out of town after we been attacked with more than 100 people. kilos of raw meat.
Politically correct university
PCU stands for Port Chester University, but is quickly becoming an acronym for Politically Correct University according to Jeremy Piven’s James “Droz” Andrews. Droz is one of those guys you’d like to have a beer or 12 with, but not the kind of person you’d like to establish any form of meaningful relationship with, because he’s an agent of chaos and a loose cannon who doesn’t only wants to party. In his seventh year of university, Droz has a goal to defend against all the “cause leaders” who latch on to whatever social issue is current, resulting in a litany of complaints against his group of students. known as “The Pit”.
When Tom Lawrence (Chris Young) visits PCU as a freshman, he finds himself caught in the middle of a years-long feud between The Pit and their snazzily named rival band, the Balls and Shaft. ”, led by an insufferable preppie named Rand McPherson (David Spade). Although Tom only visits the PCU, he quickly makes enemies because he always shows up at the wrong place at the wrong time and is incredibly accident-prone. Despite his inherent ability to annoy everyone, especially after he inadvertently crashes the computer lab while everyone is fretting over their theses, Droz takes Tom under his wing and shows him what college life is really like.
On the wrong side of the university president
The main conflict in UCP involves Rand’s desire to sabotage The Pit while simultaneously bringing Greek life back to campus. In a previous timeline, the frat house occupied by The Pit was the residence of Balls and Shaft, but The Pit refuses to leave because it is their party headquarters. Working with University President Garcia-Thompson (Jessica Walter), Rand compiles all the complaints against The Pit, as well as the damage bill from the previous semester, totaling more than $7,000.
If The Pit can’t foot the bill for the damage and answer for their petty crimes, they will be kicked out of the house and expelled from school.
Party your way out of this one
As you can imagine, the rest of UCP revolves around Droz, Gutter (Jon Favreau) and Mullaney (Alex Desert) intent on starting the rage to end all ragers in order to raise money and foot the damage bill while offending as many people as possible in the process. Meanwhile, Tom inadvertently (and continually) makes more and more enemies on campus as the film progresses.
After its initial configuration, UCP is a crash course in stealing beer from rival dorms, disrupting campus protests for fun whenever the opportunity presents itself, and using the Starland Vocal Band as a form of psychological torture if you know how to use one steering wheel lock as a means. to trap your subjects in a stuffy banquet hall.
But it may be the most important advice you can get UCP is to never, under any circumstances, wear the shirt of the group you are going to see.
An improbable double functionality
All alone, UCP is a solid, carefree party movie about a ragtag group of miscreants who playfully antagonize everyone on campus as their primary form of entertainment. But if you really want to see our hero, Droz, get a taste of his own medicine, I highly recommend watching UCP ahead of 2003 Old school and treat the latter as a sequel set in an alternate universe where Jeremy Piven plays Dean Gordon “Cheese” Pritchard, who finds himself the victim of exactly the same kind of chaos.
Unfortunately, this masterpiece of gross-out comedy isn’t being released anywhere, so you’ll have to locate a DVD if you want to see what it is. UCP that’s all.
