MOVIE REVIEW: Everybody Wants Some!!

Richard Linklater returns after the massive critical and financial success of Boyhood with what he calls the spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused.  Before going to see this film I meant to watch Dazed and Confused, but sadly there are only so many hours in a day and I have to keep up that Male Supermodel career.  I’ve taken photos and you’ll be thankful I didn’t want that first movie… trust me!

So the loose story here is that a group of College Baseball players are getting together just days before college starts.  The mix of new players and the veterans of the team start to mingle and some fit in better than others.  The main thing that they seem interested in, apart from Baseball, is having sex with the college girls, drinking, and smoking joints.  The varied backgrounds of the players provides a realistic and entertaining comedy drama set in the early 1980’s.  Linklater manages to give us another slice of period American Life and does so with so much ease that you fall straight into the story.  The best way that I can describe this film that will make you want to go see it or not is a more serious National Lampoon’s Animal House.  The people are fitter and better looking, but there is still that zany nature to the shenanigans.

So Jake is just out of high school and it’s four days before the college term starts, when he moves in to the off campus house, one of two houses that the Baseball team has, he is brought straight to the life he’s about to live over the next four years.  With the team members all having different expectations to what their career in Baseball is going to be, some know there is a chance that this might not be their career, while others pin all their dreams on the future of the sport.

I’ll admit that I don’t know that much about Linklater’s work, I’ve never seen Dazed and Confused, but I have to say that I’m going to have to change that.

Everybody Wants Some has an amazing soundtrack, that has you tapping your feet along the running time.  The 1980’s setting is perfect, catching the tail end of Disco and the future approach of more commercial pop music.  The fashion and styling of the film is also done with an eye for the detail of the time.  Acting wise the performances thread the line between average to above average, but it works so well.

What I didn’t like is the overly sexist and almost threatening tones of the film, maybe I’m overly sensitive here but there is a feeling of anger towards women throughout the film that is hard to ignore.

Most of the movie works perfectly and while the plot is fast and loose, with no clear line of sight through the film, you just sit back and think about the story, when the guys are together and not talking about sex you feel really good about watching the film.  The overwhelming charm that is there makes you conflicted.

For fans of Dazed and Confuses and Linklater you probably with find a lot to like here.  It doesn’t have the emotional impact of Boyhood, which is a little sad, nor the beautiful tone of Before Midnight.  If you lived through the late 70’s and early 80’s there will be a lot here that you’ll remember, like those male hairstyles and moustaches, and we’ve got to learn from those mistakes.  Seriously we do have to learn from bad hairstyles.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Director: Richard Linklater
Writer: Richard Linklater
Stars: Blake Jenner, Tyler Hoechlin, Ryan Guzman