Stealing Harvard

Movie Title: Stealing Harvard

Official Website (it might still work): Stealing Harvard

Rating (out of 10): 4

Buy the: Video/DVD | Soundtrack

The Review:

I cannot believe that someone would give Tom Green another movie role after he permanently scarred audiences who went to see Freddy Got Fingered. I also can’t believe that Jason Lee would agree to be in a movie with Tom Green. Luckily for audiences, Stealing Harvard gives more screen time to Lee, otherwise I would have needed cyanide pills after watching the movie.

In the film, Lee (Vanilla Sky) plays John Plummer, just your average middle-class guy that happens to have a peculiar girlfriend. John’s girlfriend Elaine Warner (Leslie Mann, Orange County) loves John, but will only marry him once they have saved $30,000 so that they can put a down payment on a house. In addition to this, she cries every time she has sex even when it is good, and she has an odd relationship with her overprotective father. Well, the two finally save the money and get engaged when John’s niece Noreen (Tammy Blanchard) informs him that she has been admitted to college, and it is Harvard. We then learn that in order to console Noreen after missing the word tarp in a grade-school spelling bee, John promised to pay for her college education. So now John needs to come up with $30,000 for Noreen, but he can’t possibly break Elaine’s heart and give up the house, so instead he goes to his good friend, but complete loser Duff (Tom Green) for advice (who in their right mind would consult with someone named Duff?). Duff does not have that kind of money, but leads John down a long road of failed criminal acts in an effort to obtain the $30,000 for Noreen’s college. Some of these attempts are funny, Jason Lee is funny, Dennis Farina (Saving Private Ryan) is funny as Elaine’s father, and Megan Mullally (Monkeybone and NBC’s Will & Grace) is hilarious as John’s sister, but Tom Green is just plain stupid in this movie.

Also in this Bruce McCulloch directed film are Richard Jenkins, John C. McGinley, Martin Starr, Seymour Cassel, Chris Penn, Scott Adsit, and Bobby Harwell.

As one would expect, the film would have been much better off without Tom Green. However, we don’t always get what we want, which drags Stealing Harvard down to four couches despite some great supporting characters.