This movie is on the surface a bit of a disappointment and not particularly fresh in it's approach to three men, adrift in their 40s, who try to recapture the lost joys and squandered possibilities of their youth. The movie itself is a nonstop barrage — somewhere between a riot and an orgy — of crude, obnoxious gags and riffs mixed with blatantly juvenile sexual behavior and innuendo. If you are a connoisseur of sexual, scatological or just plain stupid humor, you will find your appetite satisfied, even glutted. But viewers of a certain age are likely to endure the montage with a twinge of pained, slightly nauseated nostalgia.
That is the text. The subtext is that the promise of youth was intoxicating for these men, and unbeknownst to them, it eroded swiftly and entirely away, and they are left bereft and in one case, suicidal. And it shocks them. This is a story told in a way that men can listen to, and women might find repulsive. But it is important to pay attention, because all this crudeness doesn't actually turn the guys off to the story unfolding before them--on the contrary, it speaks to them. The time travel back to the promise of their youth and how they respond to it is worth thinking about for young and old alike. This is Superbad for the middle aged man.
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