Camp Stories Reviews

It's hard to speak unkindly of such an obviously heartfelt, well-intentioned and deeply personal effort as this one, the directing debut of lawyer and writer Herbert Beigel. But sometimes the truth is hard: It's a cliched, amateurish, badly acted excuse for a coming-of-age picture. The year is 1958, and adolescent movie buff David Katz (Zachary Taylor) wants nothing less than to spend the summer at Orthodox Jewish Camp Ararat. He gets off on the wrong foot with bullying head counselor Chaim (Tad Marcoux), battles with bunkmate Paul (Kris Park) and gets blamed for everything, including stealing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and throwing them in the lake. Consider the summer camp cliches: The mismatched campers, the thuggish counselor and his frustrated sexpot wife, the ancient camp owner (Jerry Stiller) who thinks rock 'n' roll is the Devil's work, the panty-raid, the talent contest, the first furtive make-out session, the big softball game against the neighboring camp. That these kids wear yarmulkes, worry about whether the peanut butter is kosher and don't make fun of fellow campers for being named Yehudah doesn't make these conceits any fresher. And it seems a little disingenuous that Beigel's fictional stand-in, the put-upon David, is such a paragon: Most adults, looking back at their miserable teen years, have to concede that they were at least partly to blame for their troubles. That fundamental lack of insight or perspective keeps the movie from ever rising above its limitations.