Movie with Abe: A Good Old Fashioned Orgy

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy
Directed by Alex Gregory & Peter Huyck
Released September 2, 2011

There’s hardly a better setup for an ensemble comedy than a title like “A Good Old Fashioned Orgy.” This film assembles a fun cast of eight best friends, all of whom haven’t quite grown up and still return to a Hamptons home on summer weekends to engage in irresponsible partying. It’s a film ripe for raunchy, depraved humor and filled with potential romantic entanglements. “A Good Old Fashioned Orgy” delivers on that premise with ninety-five minutes of good old fashioned entertainment that isn’t frequently laugh-out-loud funny but serves its purpose just fine.

At the head of this cast are Jason Sudeikis, graduated from simply starring on “Saturday Night Live” to lead roles in “Horrible Bosses” and “Hall Pass,” and Tyler Labine, a former comic scene stealer on several TV shows including “Reaper” and “Invasion.” Sudeikis and Labine do a terrific job of energizing their considerably tamer costars and helping to make the chain of events that lead to the suggestion of the orgy rather believable. Among the supporting cast’s standouts are Lake Bell and Lindsay Sloane as two particularly insecure friends, and Lucy Punch and Will Forte as the only married friends in the pals, not invited to participate. Overall, the cast is strong, and works together well to form a fully functional ensemble.

The film itself is considerably less serious, but that’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. It deserves tremendous commendation for not devolving when it comes to the execution of the orgy, but instead offering a less ferocious and far more reserved take on what happens when friends have to put their money where their mouths are. There’s plenty of potty humor to be found in “A Good Old Fashioned Orgy,” but it’s a smarter film than its title might suggest, and only gets stronger rather than weaker as its formidable event approaches.

While the film is reliably and evenly entertaining, it’s not the laugh fest that it could perhaps have been given some of the stars’ other projects. There are times when the film comes surprisingly close to exhibiting too much sentimentality, and it feels like a much tamer film than it should be. Fortunately, it manages to keep that in check and focus on what’s really important: a tight-knit group of eight friends who decide that maybe it’s time for something more, eager to do something new, exciting, and memorable. This film may not quite succeed on that level, but it’s still a great time.

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