Beerfest (2006)

Beerfest (2006)

Directed by: Jay Chandrasekhar

Starring: Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Juergen Prochnow

Whenever I first saw this Broken Lizard film, I expected the worst. The sort of idiotic sophomoric humor you’d find in a Will Farrell movie or something like that. I was pleasantly surprised.

Two brothers attend their grandfather’s funeral in Germany and learn that he was the black sheep of the family that owns the oldest brewery in Germany. He was a champion drinker at Beerfest, which is a traditional competition of drinking games hidden underneath Octoberfest. No Americans have ever participated, so they gather a team and work all year to beat the German team that embarrassed them.

Again, this was a surprisingly funny movie. It was more or less straight-forward and had the appropriate twists and turns at just the right moment, but it was all done very deliberately and with extra enthusiasm, really giving the impression that they loved doing something as cheesy as the overall premise was, while still injecting a good dose of good ol’ fashioned slapstick.

So yeah, it was pretty good. And you don’t even really have to be a fan of beer games to enjoy it, all the prerequisites really are is having seen a sports movie before.