The Leader

This is not to say that is a bad thing.

Two brothers, Jan (Paul Soter) and Todd (Erik Stolhanske) Wolfhouse are the heirs to their German grandfather’s (here played by a sauced Donald Sutherland) schnitzel restaurant with their great grandmother “Gam Gam” (here played by a tarted up Cloris Leachman) to watch over them. Aside for taking over the family business, Jan and Todd’s only other obligation is to take their grandfather’s ashes back to Germany where the rest of their family is interred. After embarrassing themselves at an Oktoberfest hofbrauhaus, the brothers Wolfhouse find themselves sucked into the seedy underworld of underground competitive drinking.

Satirizing any number of “Underdog versus Champion” and “Extreme Underground” movies, from the laughable Fast and the Furious trilogy to Fight Club, Broken Lizard brings drinking to an entirely different level. The first rule of Beerfest (the actual name of the alcoholic tournament) is to not talk about Beerfest; this rule, if broken, is punishable by death. Training is grueling, ranging from learning the hydrodynamics of beer flowing through a glass boot to putting down a pint of ram’s urine a day, because anyone who can drink that can drink anything. Just don’t try that at home.

Nothing in this movie is not to be taken seriously on any level. The gallons of beer that are consumed by these men are in most cases clearly computer animation, or simply clever jump-cuts; the drinking games are twisted perversions of anything any college student has played in basements and attics across the United States, their minds tragically addled on mixtures of Hamm’s, Popov and any number of other chemicals known to science since the 16^th century. 

Of course, it is important to remember that alcoholism is nothing to laugh at. People die every day from liver disease, auto accidents and alcohol poisoning after getting good and tight the night before. Public service announcements all aside, the best way to take this movie in is with your car keys locked away and a keg full of homebrewed lager sitting by the couch. 

Prost!

3.5 of 5

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