ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 30, 1994                   TAG: 9404300026
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium


`PCU' ISN'T QUITE RUDE ENOUGH

As advertised, "PCU" is a descendant of "National Lampoon's Animal House." It's a raucous, irreverent campus comedy that would be better if it were even more raucous and irreverent.

But, for a low-budget movie that looks like it was shot on the run, this one has some really funny moments. And though the title suggests that the the butt of the joke is going to be liberal excesses, the filmmakers are even-handed. They attack all their subjects with equal zest, particularly sanctimonious conservatives.

Tom Lawrence (Chris Young) is a pre-freshman visiting Port Chester University for the weekend. His guide and mentor is Droz (Jeremy Piven), a seventh-year senior ne'er-do-well who runs things at The Pit, a one-time fraternity house where PCU's misfits and oddballs have congregated. Everyone at the school is against The Pit. As Droz observes, "It used to be us against them. Now it's us against us." The rest of the school has been balkanized into competing factions - militant "womynists," vegans who think red meat is murder, angry black students, organized gays, squads of computer geeks, even disenfranchized preppies who want their frat house back. Catering to all of their whims is President Garcia-Thompson (Jessica Walter) who wants to adopt an endangered species as the new school mascot.

When she threatens to toss the guys and girls from the Pit off campus, they decide - surprise, surprise - to throw a party.

There's not much polish to Zak Penn and Adam Leff's script. Instead, it's driven by a crazed anarchy that comes straight from the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges. Actor-turned-director Hart Bochner is up to the task. Early on, he dispenses with such niceties as character development or motivation, and cuts to the chase. After that, the pace seldom slows, even if it's focused on a pointless frisbee game.

The basis of this kind of humor is deflating pretentions, and since self-satisfied Reaganites are the most pretentious crowd on today's political landscape, they suffer the most. Their comeuppance, too horrible to be described in a family newspaper, involves that '70s pop standard "Afternoon Delight."

In the end, about half the jokes are as funny as they're meant to be, and, though its heart is in the right place, "PCU" is never quite as rude and tasteless as it could have been.

PCU ** 1/2 A 20th Century Fox release playing at the Valley View Mall 6. 80 min. Rated PG-13 for subject matter, strong language.



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