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HARVARD MAN Send This Review to a Friend
I don't know whether "Harvard Man" will inspire or deter enrollment at the prestigious university. Student and basketball player Alan Jensen, played amiably by Adrian Grenier, is way over his head in his extra-curricular activities. On the plus side he having an affair with his beautiful philosophy professor Chesney (Joey Lauren Adams). All students should be that lucky. Alas, he is in for a surprise in that department. Alan is also sleeping with the attractive Cindy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), the daughter of a powerful mobster.
Life for Alan gets increasingly complicated in this oddball film, written and directed by James Toback, who has earned his reputation making oddball films. The Kansas home of Alan's parents has been destroyed by a Tornado and Alan desperately wants to help them. In return for big money that he borrows, he is faced with the need to manipulate points in a basketball game and all that can follow from that.
As if this weren't enough of a plot, Toback has Alan descend into a nightmare of drug taking. It is as if the film wants desperately to hark back to the 1960s. Alan ingests an especially potent form of LSD and against advice takes three cubes at once instead of one. The result is that he flips out for days, and Toback provides much visual fun looking at the world through Alan's distorted perceptions. Apart from the twisted faces Alan sees, one of the women in what appears to be a Gauguin painting walks out of the picture and puts an arm around Alan. There is also a funny bit with comedian Al Franken taking his daughter to explore the possibilities of Harvard and encountering the very high Alan.
Toback lets the drug stuff drag on too long and repetitively and the film tends to grow tedious after most of the humor that can be found in Alan's screwed up life has been mined and the intricate but none-to-clever plot moves toward resolution. But anyone familiar with Tobak's work ("Fngers," "Black and White") knows to expect some good moments. A Cowboy Pictures release.
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