Spring Breakdown

Released in 2009 and directed by Ryan Shiraki, "Spring Breakdown" is a comedy about three geeky women in their mid-30s (Amy Poehler, Parker Posey & Rachel Dratch) who finally decide to get "with it" by going to Spring Break at the notorious South Padre Island, Texas. They're supposed to keep an eye on a senator's daughter (Amber Tamblyn) so she doesn't get out of hand. Jane Lynch plays the politician whereas Missi Pyle is on hand as a party girl.

The plot is cute, there are some quietly amusing bits and the raunch is thankfully kept at bay, but this is mostly a missed opportunity. I think females will appreciate it more than I did; it screams "chick flick." It does, however, show the awful truth about the bikini & beer subculture built around Spring Break (pukin' on the beach and having sex with a total stranger while dead drunk; yeah that sounds like fun – woo hoo!).

The film runs 84 minutes and was shot at South Padre Island, Texas, and Long Beach & Los Angeles (UCLA), California.

GRADE: C- (4.5/10)

Gayle O'Brien (Amy Poehler), Becky St. Germaine (Parker Posey), and Judi Joskow (Rachel Dratch) are three friends from State College. They think that things will get better, but 15 years later, they are still losers. Becky works for Senator Hartmann (Jane Lynch). She gets sent down to springbreak to watch over the senator's daughter Ashley Hartmann (Amber Tamblyn) and her friends Lydia (Mae Whitman) and Truvy (Sarah Hagan). Only the three young friends are really just as much of losers as the three older women.

Amy Poehler got some pretty good laughs in. When she was rejected by a blind Will Arnett, that's a funny bit. Parker Posey and Rachel Dratch aren't that funny at all. Dratch chasing after Justin Hartley seems more creepy than funny. As for the younger three, they just don't have enough to do. Amber Tamblyn is pretty good but there might be too many lead characters. Not everybody has the room to breathe.

This is one of those times where you CAN judge a book by its cover (or judge a DVD by its box). As the cover implies, it's a silly movie about three 30-something, nerdy women trying to pass for spring break partiers. The gags are predictable, but much like a Rodney Dangerfield movie, that's why we go to see it. No surprises, just a series of expected scenes & funny clichés.

I watched this mainly because I'm a big fan of Parker Posey (Josie & the Pussycats, Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman). After seeing her in so many eccentric roles, it was interesting to see her play the straight role for a change while most of the crazy antics were handled by Rachel Dratch or Amy Poehler. Actually what made me lol the most was a hilarious supporting role by Missi Pyle (an actress who is mostly known for hilarious supporting roles, like in Galaxy Quest, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Sarah Silverman Program). Missi plays a perfect Texas slut. Equally hilarious is a supporting performance by Jane Lynch (Best in Show, Mighty Wind) as she plays a psychotic senator who could easily be the result of an unfortunate cross-breeding between Hillary Clinton & Sarah Palin. Yes, very frightening.

Lots of the gags deal with late 80s nostalgia, such as music by Cyndi Lauper, Wilson Phillips, and a painful scene of the Electric Slide that'll give you horrible flashbacks. My guess is that this film would be enjoyed by similar 30- or 40-something people who remember how awkward & goofy the 80s & 90s were. For those of us who lived through those brutally cheezy decades, it's always fun to see these kinds of movies. If you fall into that generation, I highly recommend "Music & Lyrics" with Drew Barrymore & Hugh Grant.

Final note, if you go down to your local Blockbuster you can find this DVD for $1.99 on the bargain table. For two bucks you can't go wrong!

Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch are among the funnier women to have been on "Saturday Night Live". It's unfortunate that they, along with Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph, were on SNL during the longest stretch of unfunny writing and sketch-making (circa 2002-2006) the show has ever had. Still, these two women most especially know what's funny, and they know how to write a funny movie.

You'll notice in the credits of this movie that Dratch and director Ryan Shiraki wrote the story for "Spring Breakdown", but who wrote the actual screenplay, consisting of dialogue and all the important fill-in-the-blank material that makes a story into a multidimensional movie? Yep, just Shiraki. Just one guy wrote the dialogue for this movie, and no women apparently wrote the script with him. The result is a pretty cliché spring break movie that doesn't so much spoof the faux holiday as much as exploit it equally as much as MTV does every year.

If Dratch, Poehler, and even co-star Parker Posey could have contributed their handwriting to the screenplay, it would have been far less cliché. The premise is original, being about three thirty-something women who were unpopular in high school (and apparently college, too), and never had the fun spring break trip they allegedly dreamed about. I say "allegedly" because you never quite know what fun is to these characters. They entered talent shows in the past where they sang stale pro-woman anthems like "True Colors", and spend their nights together holding make-your-own-pizza parties. Even though none of them are especially unattractive, the outside world appears to treat them like they are. There's a scene where a blind student of Poehler's (played by Poehler's real life husband Will Arnett) asks her out on a date, only to touch her face and immediately change his mind. If Poehler's character is supposed to be unattractive, they obviously hired the wrong actress.

The movie continues to show promise, even though we have our doubts about the main characters, when Posey's boss, Texas Senator 'Kay Bee' Hartmann (Jane Lynch, funny as always) hires Posey to watch over her unpopular college-age daughter (Amber Tamblyn, playing yet another woman who's attractive in real life, but not in the eyes of any characters in this movie) while she goes to a Laguna Beach-like vacation spot for Spring Break. Poehler and Dratch come along, they reluctantly get boozed up, party like they apparently should have when they were in college, and then comes the ultimate showdown with the sorority bitches, whose leader is Sophie Monk.

Sophie Monk is an incredibly attractive woman who has a body both women and men would kill to have for different reasons. Unfortunately, her movie career is off to a rough start with the abominably unfunny "Date Movie" (2006) and the disappointing "Click" (2006). Here, she plays a Southern belle, although her voice sounds like she stole Delta Burke's voice box. She hams it up a little too much, trying too hard to play a conniving bitch that she comes off as much like a caricature of spoiled college kids as the rest of the extras.

"Spring Breakdown" was released straight to DVD despite the star power of Amy Poehler, but rightly so because the story is way too cliché. It may as well have been called "National Lampoon's Spring Breakdown", and the magazine probably wouldn't have sued for trademark infringement because of the free publicity. If director Shiraki had given at least one woman the creative input, especially Rachel Dratch, this movie would have been great and not nearly as run-of-the-mill as frat-house comedies we've seen before. I know Dratch will come up with another funny concept, and hopefully be allowed to fill in the rest of the screenplay herself. She's funny enough, and she deserves better than this half-baked comedy that would accept Stiffler's brother with open arms.

Dude this movie rocks with great conflict comedy, social satire and the deliciously sexy Sophie Monk in one of her biggest roles yet! If you are at all enlightened/political you will love the female GW Bush character, the environmental jokes, the feminist humor amid wet tee-shirts,...

Gentlemen, don't be threatened by a chick-flick that straddles all sides of the aisle. Sit back and enjoy a drunk Rachael Dratch shouting "Do me!" as her friends haul her away. Parker Posey as the suck-up gopher who loves the environment and Amy Poehler as a wannabe "seven" girl also deliver in a big way.

Then there is the delectable Sophie Monk. Thank GOD she's getting larger roles. Girl you got it going on. Call me!