The Pool Boys

Alex Sperling (Brett Davern of Awkward), fresh out of high-school hooks up with his cousin Roger (Matthew Lillard) when he needs a new internship after his first one is unexpectedly terminated. But turns out Roger exaggerated his place in life and is a mere pool boy. When Roger's place is being fumigated, he decides to stay at a vacationing client's mansion, which he soon turns into a makeshift brothel to help pay for Alex's tuition. Meanwhile Alex is falling for one of the prostitutes.

This film was merely OK for a lazy rainy day afternoon. It's never laugh out loud funny, but it's not as awful as other movies of it's ilk. The only gripes I had was I couldn't really buy Pedro from Napolean Dynamite as anything approaching a 'tough guy' and I still have no clue how they got the great Robert Davi to cameo. But that aside its a serviceable enough film.

Eye Candy: Simona Fusco shows T&A; Janine Habeck, Monica Leigh, Jennifer Walcott, and AJ Alexander get topless

My Grade: C+

Where I saw it: Cinemax

The plot of this film definitely seemed intriguing and was a little more explicit than expected. The film is labeled as a comedy but it's humor is that of silly sexual gags that feel forced where it isn't exactly humorous. Slightly reminiscent of the film The Girl Next Door (2004) in some aspects but of course that film is easily superior. The lead character of Alex in the Pool Boys also gave similar vibes to the character of Emile Hirsch in the Girl Next Door.

As a film it is relatively predictable but still moderately entertaining. It does conclude with an expected positive message in the end. The love angle turned out as expected. Comedy is subjective and this isn't a laugh out loud comedy. Some of those early IMDB reviews claiming how hilarious this movie is sound ridiculous and very over exaggerated.

I really like Matthew Lillard. He's the kind of actor that just gets by. Nothing is really extraordinary. He just does his job in pretty cool movies.

This is a good one. There's money, women, sex, and all the above. My favorite part is the slacker aspect of it. I also like how the main character re-evaluated his life at the end, and decides to go back to school to pursue a real career.

It was a decent effort. I like movies like this.

Watch it if you want.

7 stars

Alex is on his way to Harvard but needs a summer internship to qualify for a scholarship. When a job in D.C. falls through, he turns to his glib cousin, Roger, whom he thinks is an aquatic engineer.

Roger is, in truth, a Beverly Hills pool boy who offers Alex a job and promises to invent an internship to fool Harvard.

When a pool customer with a mansion goes on holiday for six weeks, Roger gets the idea to run a brothel and enlists Alex to keep the books. As the scholarship interview approaches, what could go wrong?

Been done before and I supposed the $15 budget was spent on Meth because it doesn't show in the film quality. Maybe it went to Tarzan. The film is really dumb. The part that is especially annoying is it takes this "insider" approach where the actors give a nod and a wink to the audience that they are in a movie. It doesn't work. It brings the film down to a Troma level and that's a micro budget.

15 minutes into this movie I actually thought close to 90 minutes elapsed! That's how bad it is.

My recommendation is don't bother

I heard there is a release date for this film for Sept. 30, 2011, but I had a chance to see it at a screening already. I will admit I went with much trepidation, but by the time the film was done, I had a good time for two hours. This is definitely a genre film, in the vein of "Animal House," "Risky Business," and "American Pie," and even some Night Shift," thrown in. But every film falls into some kind of story structure, and "The Pool Boys" is no different.

This film is good-natured and is meant to be a feel-good film. Matthew Lillard and Rachelle Lefevre are quite good, actually making you care about their characters, and John Billingsley is a hoot as the Dean everyone wished they had. The party that wraps things up, is hilarious and worth the price of admission.

This film is what it is and doesn't pretend to be anything more, and it succeeds admirably. The film is never mean or hateful to its own characters. Enjoyable.