When I lived in an apartment a couple years ago I was lucky that the neighbours downstairs and me had a good understanding. It meant we both could play music/watch movies at considerable volume without this resulting in problems. When those neighbours left I had to wait and see what type of people would move in. Luckily the arrangement remained the same. But after a while I started having an issue with them as they would play the same song everyday for hours and continued to do so for weeks. The bassline of the song started to get on my nerves and I started wondering how to address this, because of course you run the risk of upsetting the “natural balance”, which could result in escalation. I decided to go in friendly and luckily they understood and we could both continue the way we always did. For Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne) Radner it turns out differently.
They are young parents and are shocked when they find out that the house next to them will be used as a frat house. The initially try to act cool by partying with the boys, but it doesn’t take long before it all becomes to much and they decide to talk to the leader, Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron). He’s open to their story and agrees that he will listen to them as long as they don’t call the police. It is no surprise that happens though, which results in a “war” between the two houses. The Radners try to do everything they can to get the students out of the house, while they have to deal with retaliations they receive because of that.
The movie succeeds in showing the dynamics between the groups and the plans they make up to sabotage each other often lead to very funny situations. The laughs also come from subjects as the effect of having a child on a couple and the fact that students try to do anything to make themselves immortal. Seth Rogen is at home in the comedy genre, but Zac Efron is funny and convincing as well. Bad Neighbours might be a comedy which won’t leave a lasting impression, but despite that is entertaining enough to check out.
Maybe it was a matter of the environment I was in, but watching this with my bestie and a couple beers at, like, 1AM left me in complete satisfaction. I can’t remember the last time I laughed this hard, and this long. Like, from the opening scene till the end I was literally in stitches. My mouth hurt.
Thankfully, I’ve never met my neighbors, or had reason to 😛
Laughed a whole heck of a lot during this. But what I liked most about it was the fact that it actually had a heart to it all and that it also worked well. Good review.