Going Greek

The makers of this movie should have known they were in trouble when they hired Chris Owens to be the tough guy, rather than the geek. Did they honestly think that viewers would think of him as anything other than a complete idiot? And I am not just basing it on the Sherminatior. I am basing it on the fact that he clearly is a complete geek. In reality, he would NEVER get in a fraternity (which REALLY makes a person sad.) let alone be one of the big men in it.

The rest of the movie was equally as poorly made. Predictable, unfunny, and just plain painful to watch. This movie is not worth even 5 minutes of the viewer's time.

Let's get this straight up front: "Going Greek" does not deviate from the college-sex-party genre first established by "Animal House." Nor does it rise about fare like "Old School" or "American Pie." However, without the benefit of marquee names, "Going Greek" unearths a gem that is seldom found in most of the dredge released these days by National Lampoon: comedy. "Going Greek" is genuinely funny, with a fantastic no-name cast and terrific story to boot. If anything, the film is more akin to "PCU," another cult college film made way before Jeremy Piven joined an "Entourage" and John Favreau launched "Zathura."

And who knows? Maybe wider audiences will someday know the names Dylan Bruno and Dublin James.

Check it out.

A great comedy with alot on snazz and fun. If you are a brother of a fraternity, or have at least gone through pledgeship, you will definately enjoy the humor in this movie. With plenty of beer drinking, experiences through "hell week", and plenty of girls this movie will entertain you til' the very end!!!

Does this movie take itself seriously? Meaning, seriously as a comedy targeted on young audience? While I know the (self imposed) limitations of American campus comedy and know what to expect from such a movie, I must say, that only a few moments were worth a laugh (and I can take even cheesy or perverse jokes).

The point is, that many moments probably were meant to be laughed on, but in the same time they were pretty sad... Sad in a way, that the movie, without its end (that I don't want to reveal for those who might want to watch this movie "seriously" as it is) could be pretty illustrative sociological study of the American youth, or even of the birth of many specific pathological features of the American society.

Bearing all the possible inhumane hazing, torture, ridiculous rituals, laws of the mass, do-what-group-does mentality, declaring machismo and pure male chauvinism as "tradition", or self-destructive alcoholism as "culture" ... for what? "Being part of"? "Helping friend being part of"? The motivation of characters is not very believable - considering the amount of dignity they are willing to sacrifice, with absurd indifference.

With all this said, the movie might be pretty good serious study of the college fraternity mentality system - evoking the despair from any well-known tragedies, invoking lot's of anger in viewer. But in this sense, it lacks something like catharsis. One can see, how genre framing can deform our view of certain situations. We try to laugh on what is really a matter of anger and sadness.

Thus, one has a feeling, that all this inhumanity is just fun, part of wonderful students life, something to be consumed and laughed on ... and forgotten. As this movie should be.

I had the pleasure of catching this film at a screening in New York and wanted to make sure others got word that this is a film to see. First off, let's have no misconceptions here: Going Greek is not Saving Private Ryan, The Godfather or Gone With the Wind. It is, however, an excellent addition to the genre set by Animal House and further embellished by Porky's and American Pie. Is it an "important" film? Of course not, but if you want to laugh A LOT and spend a very amusing 90 minutes with a crisp, well directed and thoughtful film, then check it out.

Other reviewers have said a lot of what I would say, so I won't bore you with repetitive details, but nobody thus far has commented on the pacing of the film. A lot of movies, comedy or otherwise, spend too much time on individual scenes. The special quality of this film, and the effectiveness of Director Justin Zackham (watch for more from this guy) is that the movie drops into each scene, delivers its joke - good or bad - and gets out quickly. The result is that you are never bored. Humor being what it is, you won't be able to satisfy everyone with every joke. Zackham intuitively understands this and makes sure you don't get the chance to get restless waiting for a scene to end. The odds of this are mitigated somewhat as the writing is good enough that most of the scenes are actually really funny.

Overall, this is a film worth seeing. High art it ain't, but good laughs, a well written script and really good directing made it very worthwhile.