How would you feel if a fraternity moved into the house next door? Depends on where you are in life I suppose. It would be pretty cool if you are a fresh-faced college freshman, free from any real responsibility and down to party. If you were a young married couple with a young child, you probably wouldn’t be as excited. How would you handle a situation like that? Move away? Make life a living hell? To an independent observer, it would be entertaining to watch!
That’s where the premise of Neighbors takes off – Mac Radner (Seth Rogen) is a young father and along with his wife Kelly (Rose Byrne), they have to put up with the newly moved in Beta frat next door, led by president Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron) and VP Pete (Dave Franco).
Things start out innocuous enough – Mac asks the frat to keep in mind that they have neighbors, particularly the fact that there will be a baby girl sleeping next door, and as a result keep the noise down during the inevitable frathouse parties. From there, the relations between the two groups rapidly devolve, with Mac and Kelly breaking the ultimate ‘cool’ rule: calling the cops. From there, the frat goes out of its way to ostracize the young couple, and so the couple fights back. They attempt to destroy the house, knowing that the group of poor college kids wouldn’t have the ability to pay for repairs to the building and forcing them to move. Instead, the frat holds a creative fundraiser, and continues their partying. The next route is to try and get the frat disbanded by the University for violating their charter and getting three ‘strikes’ (ah, the vaunted three strikes policy). The frat already has one strike on record, so Mac, Kelly, and their friends plan their ultimate revenge, which is when things really go south for both groups.
There were a lot of great supporting characters in this movie. I really enjoyed the various fraternity brothers as well as Officer Watkins (Hannibal Buress) and Jimmy (Ike Barinholtz), Mac’s idiot coworker and friend. Additionally, there were some unexpected cameos from the Workaholics gang, Andy Samberg, and others.
A lot of people were pretty incensed about this movie if you check out the IMDB page. I get some of the complaints, one largely being that this film was pretty sexually explicit for an R-rated flick. Granted, there was a lot of cheap ‘toilet’ humor, but I certainly enjoyed this movie much more than the 1/10 that everyone seems to be pouring on. I was not aware that it was ‘in’ to bash raunchy comedies, but this reviewer is going to buck that trend. Sorry internet, but Neighbors is getting a 3.5/5 from me. If you liked Animal House and Old School, you’ll enjoy this as well. Know your movies, people. This wasn’t marketed under the premise of a high brow comedy.
Trailer:
3.5/5 Reels
Squid Rating
Solid, raunchy comedy. Easy to enjoy.
