Beerfest Reviews

For a booze-soaked comedy that opens with a dumb, Jackass-style "don't try this at home" disclaimer promising death to anyone stupid enough to swill the amount of beer consumed in the movie that follows, the Broken Lizard comedy troupe's fourth feature is funnier than you might imagine. Upon the death of their German grandfather, Johann (an uncredited Donald Sutherland), brothers Todd and Jan Wolfhouse (Erik Stolhanske, Paul Soter) are entrusted with the family business — a Colorado schnitzel-and-sausage shack — and Johann's ashes, which, great-grandmother Gam Gam (the always-game Cloris Leachman) explains, must be flown to Bavaria and spread at Oktoberfest. Once in Munich, however, Todd and Jan are whisked away from the boozy tourist festivities to Beerfest, an underground, high-stakes drinking competition that makes Fight Club look like kindergarten. Far from being embraced by their German relatives, led by brewery owner Baron Wolfgang von Wolfhausen (Jurgen Prochnow) and his sons Otto (Will Forte), Rolf (Nat Faxon) and Gunter (Eric Christian Olsen), Jan and Todd are denounced as the offspring of thieves and whores. According to Baron von Wolfhausen, before Grandfather Johann fled to the U.S. with Gam Gam, he stole the recipe for a beer so superior that it would have put the Von Wolfhouse brewery far ahead of its competition. As to sweet Gam Gam, she was a common tramp. Todd and Jan are trounced by their cousins in a chug off, and vow to restore the family honor by returning to Beerfest the following year with the greatest drinking team ever assembled: Phil "Landfill" Krundle (Kevin Heffernan), a competitive eater with a bottomless stomach; yarmulked lab technician Steve "Fink" Finklestein (Steve Lemme), who knows all there is to know about beer; and male prostitute Barry Badrinath (top Lizard Jay Chandrasekhar), a legendary beer-pong player who disappeared after an ugly incident in Thailand. But the road to becoming "Der Champion" won't be easy — Landfill and Fink butt heads, Barry once slept with Todd's girlfriend, and the Von Wolfhouses have dispatched their own Mata Hari (Mo'nique) to Colorado to get the disputed beer formula. Granted, the film's soundtrack is punctuated by thunderous belches, and the humor rarely rises above beer-gut level. But there are flashes of bizarre inspiration (if not enough to justify the nearly two-hour running time), the Lizards are likable schlubs and the obligatory T&A is so gratuitous you can't help but giggle.