The Pool Boys Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		2.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		1.0

The Pool Boys Blu-ray Movie Review

This 'Pool' is dirty. And not in a good way.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 26, 2011

The phenomenon of what might be termed the “frat boy humor” film goes back at least to National Lampoon’s Animal House, which of course took place in a fraternity. This often juvenile comedy genre tends to feature lots of gross out jokes, drinking, sex, and copious male bonding—all facts of life in fraternity houses nationwide. The genre seemed to have died down, at least a little, until such recent quasi-frat boy films like The Hangover franchise reinvigorated it again over the past couple of years. And of course 2011 saw the girls get into the act with Bridesmaids, a sort of “sorority girl humor” film that took the world by surprise at least partially because it showed women doing all the same gross out shtick that had previously been the purview of males. But even when this genre seemed relatively dormant, there were numerous smaller budgeted films that sought to exploit the basic outlines of the idiom, and though The Pool Boys certainly didn’t attract much (if any) attention in its initial release, it follows in a long line of films with a raucous ambience, and it seems perfectly in line with any number of B-movies (or, frankly, even C-movies) that have come along over the past few decades that had this general party atmosphere about them. And in fact The Pool Boys doesn’t seem particularly shy about trumpeting its progenitors, notably frat boy humor film non pareil American Pie, a film which shares some creative staff with this outing. Unfortunately, when you did beneath the surface a little (or, to use the pie analogy, the crust), it turns out that the real connection is actually between American Pie 2 and this film, and already there begin to be glimmers of recognition that what The Pool Boys really is is a knockoff of a knockoff. And in truth whole elements of The Pool Boys are lifted virtually intact from a long line of films, both frat boy humor-centric and otherwise, including everything from Risky Business to any number of porn films where the “hero” is a pool boy who gets involved with one busty female after another.

The Pool Boys has been gathering dust on studio shelves for several years, which may at least partially explain why (to once again use a pie analogy) it seems so awfully stale. This is one of those “high concept” offerings (by which I mean the filmmakers must have been high when they thought of it), that can be summed up in a simple phrase: two lovable losers camp out in a Beverly Hills mansion and start an “escort service” there while the rightful owners are away on vacation. You instantly know there will be all sorts of supposedly hilarious shenanigans, and there will also be (no surprise here) a wealth of scantily clad (and even undressed) women, most of whom seem to have enough silicone injected into them that they need no auxiliary flotation devices to keep them on top of the water when they get in the pool. Our two lovable losers in this case are Alex (Brett Davern), a promising high school graduate who seems to be about to follow in his family’s tradition of attending Harvard, but who ends up journeying to Los Angeles to spend the summer with his supposedly ultra-successful cousin, Roger (Matthew Lillard). In write-by-numbers screenplays like the one in The Pool Boys, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Alex soon discovers that Roger is not ultra-successful, and has indeed dropped out of Harvard and is now somewhat gainfully employed as a pool boy to the rich and famous “lifestyles” cognoscenti who inhabit La La Land.

After a series of supposedly hilarious mishaps, Alex and Roger team up with Laura (Rachel Lefevre), a local “working girl,” to start an escort service operated out of one of Roger’s client’s palatial Beverly Hills mansion. Soon the mansion itself is little more than a 24 hour a day party house cum brothel, which leads to a whole new set of supposedly hilarious mishaps, some involving the always supposedly hilarious Tom Arnold. Not even the overuse of “supposedly” in this paragraph can really fully indicate how unfunny and rote The Pool Boys is. This is absolutely brain dead filmmaking where even the gratuitous nudity doesn’t help perk things up very much.

“Comedies” (and I’m trying to be generous here) like The Pool Boys that wallow in such outright smarmy subject matter nned to be smart to actually work, and unfortunately that’s simply not the case here. There are some scattered giggles here, as when the client returns home unexpectedly (of course) and his bratty daughter finds her Barbie doll collection configured in a bunch of S&M sexual vignettes, but the humor here is often undercut by a feeling that you’re contaminating yourself simply by laughing, even a little. Lillard and the rest of the cast are so unseemly most of the time that there’s no one for the audience to connect with, let alone root for (despite lame and largely useless attempts to make Alex the “coming of age” hero of the piece).

The fact that The Pool Boys wasn’t deemed worthy of a release when it first wrapped, and then underwent a title change (it was originally supposed to come out as American Summer, replete with an American Pie- esque logo to attempt to obviously cash in on that franchise) is proof enough that even the filmmakers and studio knew what a dog they had on their hands. My wife had a great, visceral reaction to The Pool Boys as I was watching it. “How does stuff like this get made?” she asked incredulously, and I have to admit that while sharing her disbelief I can’t readily come up with a decent answer.

The Pool Boys Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Pool Boys is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Entertainment One with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is an oddly unappealing looking transfer, especially considering the relatively recent vintage of the film. Colors are often drab, fine detail is lacking except in close-ups, and the overall image quality is beset both by general softness and a weird fuzzy look that hovers somewhere between grain and digital noise. A couple of the exterior shots, strangely the bookends that begin and end the film, actually look relatively decent and pop fairly nicely, at least when compared to the murky middle section of the film. But the interior shots of the mansion are plagued with crush and muddy shadow detail, low contrast and an overall middling appearance that makes The Pool Boys often look more like upconversion than true high definition content.

The Pool Boys Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Pool Boys is presented with both a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, as well as a standard Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix. The audio here, while more front heavy than might be wished for, at least has the benefit of including a virtual nonstop jukebox of source cues, which help to make the soundtrack pop nicely and which at least occasionally provides the surround channels with a little sonic activity. Perhaps surprisingly, even the raucous party scenes (and this film is basically one big raucous party scene) don't exploit the surrounds as much as might be expected, though occasionally a stray laugh or clinking glass can be heard in discrete channels. What's here, albeit front-centric, features very good to excellent fidelity, good dynamic range and occasionally nice LFE courtesy of some of the bass heavy cues that are used.

The Pool Boys Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (SD; 2:18)
• Behind the Scenes Featurette (HD; 12:29) is about as predictable as the film. Interviews with the principal cast and crew and scenes being shot are interspersed with brief snippets from the final cut.
• Pool Boys Escort Service Virtual Lapdance (HD; 2:33) is a new low for supplemental features, even if you're a hormone-overrun adolescent male. Here you can choose between three "escorts" who then do a striptease, ending with pastie covered breasts.

The Pool Boys Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's one unintentional laugh right at the beginning of The Pool Boys. Alex in a narrated voiceover is looking at his graduation speech and talking about kvetching parents. Why would his parents kvetch (complain) about their son's big day and his speech? They might kvell (beam from overwhelming pride), but kvetch? There no doubt will be people kvetching about The Pool Boys, but those will be the poor folks who actually paid to gain admittance.