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James Mottram

BAD NEIGHBOURS
	Starring: Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, Rose Byrne
	Director: Nicholas Stoller
	Category: IIB
	Rating: 3/5
 
Bad Neighbours is a Seth Rogen comedy with frat boys in it. If that idea makes you smile, then you should probably stop reading and reserve your ticket now.
For Rogen’s movies are all carved from the same block; together with his mentor Judd Apatow, he’s changed the face of Hollywood comedy, or at least reawakened a dormant love for films featuring adolescent males behaving badly, as in Animal House and Porky’s.
Although he stars in and coproduces Bad Neighbours, he didn’t direct or write it. But with Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) at the helm, this bears all the hallmarks of Rogen’s brand, from the adolescent antics of Superbad and the stoner humour of Pineapple Express to the parenting mishaps of Knocked Up.

He plays Mac Radner, happily married husband to Kelly (Rose Byrne, pictured above). Parents to a baby girl, they’re living the suburban dream — until it sours when a fraternity moves in next door.
Led by Teddy (Zac Efron), these red-blooded boys are desperate to secure immortality for their fraternity (one, they claim, invented the toga party and beer pong).
This means turning this quiet ‘burb into Party Central — not ideal if you’re trying to raise a baby. At first the Radners play it cool, not wanting to appear “lame” in front of their student neighbours. But soon the novelty wears off.
When they call the cops on these frat boys, it starts a war of attrition.
Some of it is very predictable — the lads leering through the window at Mac and Kelly having sex, for instance. But some of it is hilarious, as when our couple find the air-bags missing from their cars.
Particularly funny is the Robert De Niro lookalike party — with Dave Franco, who plays the frat’s vicepresident, uncannily convincing in the legend’s Meet the Fockers guise.
Typical of Rogen’s borderline offensive humour, gross-out gags are shipped in by the dozen. When Mac and Kelly flood the boys’ basement, they raise money for repairs by selling dildos cast from their own penises (pity the poor fellow who gets the mould stuck to his pubic hair).
Yet what stops this from being a simple stomach-churner is what lies beneath. There’s a sense of restlessness that will feel familiar to most; while Mac and Kelly aren’t quite ready for parenthood, and seem desperate to recapture their student days, Teddy is left nervous about his future — particularly if he winds up facing the domesticity enjoyed/endured by his neighbours.
The result is more amiable than the recent Project X, another tale of hosting an epic student party. While Rogen plays the schlub to perfection, Efron is just as effective as the hunk. Rogen may just have found a new comedy partner.
 
Bad Neighbours opens on May 15
 
 


Film review: fans of Seth Rogen will love the frat boy comedy Bad Neighbours

Bad Neighbours

Mac (Seth Rogen, right) is out to impress as Teddy (Zac Efron) takes note.

Magazines

48 Hours

Bad Neighbours is a Seth Rogen comedy with frat boys in it. If that idea makes you smile, then you should probably stop reading and reserve your ticket now.
