Project X

Perhaps every generation needs a cautionary tale about leaving a teenager home alone for the weekend. Thomas (Thomas Mann) is a shy, nerdy Southern California high school senior—about to turn 17—whose parents are departing to celebrate their anniversary. Certain rules are set: Thomas can have a few friends over, but there's to be no drinking, no drugs, and no one is to enter his father's office or touch his Mercedes Benz. Of course, Thomas's sex-starved buddies (Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown) have other ideas: namely, a blowout birthday bash, a bacchanal so awesome that it will become a “game changer,” catapulting them into the status of local legends and assuring their popularity. And that's precisely what happens, as documented by Dax (Dax Flame), who videotapes the out-of-control proceedings for posterity in faux found footage Blair Witch Project style, filled with topless, Ecstasy-popping babes cavorting in the swimming pool. Not surprisingly, when the reckless revelers really go wild, a raunchy, full-scale riot occurs, intimidating not only the 12 year-old “security guards” but also the local police, not to mention potentially incinerating the entire neighborhood. Directed by Nima Nourizadeh, Project X evokes the memory of American Pie and Superbad yet surpasses both in a deafening, repetitive hedonistic fantasy montage of home-wrecking coupled with crude and degrading sexism and homophobia. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: Blu-ray extras include an extended cut of the film, a "Declassified" behind-the-scenes featurette (6 min.), the production featurettes "The Pasadena 3" on casting (6 min.) and "Project Xpensive: Tallying Up the Damages" (3 min.), trailers, and bonus DVD and UltraViolet copies of the film. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a mess of a film.] (S. Granger)