Delay admission to 'Harvard' until video

\"Stealing Harvard\" is a flick best suited to video. My buddies and I laughed fairly consistently throughout the film, but we were in the minority. I can't speak for them, but I think we would have dug the movie a whole lot more with a case of beer, i.e. at home.\nJason Lee headlines the flick as John Plummer, an all-around nice guy with a big problem. John and his fiancé, Elaine (Leslie Mann of "Big Daddy"), have been saving to purchase a house -- "the cornerstone of marital bliss." He, by working for Elaine's overprotective father (Dennis Farina) at his hokey medical supply store, Homespital, and she by operating a small-time gift basket business out of their apartment. \nOnce John and Elaine have saved the $30,000 needed to put a down payment on their dream home, his sexually indiscriminate sister, Patty (Megan Mullally, much funnier here than on the quintessentially lame "Will and Grace"), cashes in on a promise he made many years ago in passing. Her daughter, Noreen (an underused and an entirely too old Tammy Blanchard), has gotten into Harvard, and they expect John to foot her first year's tuition -- approximately $30,000. Convenient, huh? \nRather than disappoint his fiancé, John does what any level-headed guy would -- he turns to a life of crime to pay his niece's tuition. Aided by his dunder-headed best friend Duff (Tom Green), the two plot a series of ill-conceived robberies. Hijinks and hilarity ensue as the bumbling burglars are pursued by a chrome-domed, colonic-crazy copper named Detective Charles (John C. McGinley, best known as one of the Bob's from "Office Space").\n"Stealing Harvard" is elevated above many comedies of its ilk through director/Kids in the Hall vet Bruce McCulloch's perverse sense of humor and ironic timing, no doubt honed during his years with the Canadian troupe. Also, Green gives his best screen performance to date as dim-bulb Duff, and Lee is a likable leading man. Smaller, peripheral characters also add laughs to the proceedings -- frequent Wes Anderson collaborator Seymour Cassel does funny work as Duff's foul-mouthed uncle, and "Freaks and Geeks" alum Martin Starr does wonders in the small role of a dorkishly trigger-happy convenience store clerk.\n"Stealing Harvard" is entertaining from opening to closing credits, but on leaving the theater it will evaporate from most viewers' brains. As such it gets a passing grade, but nothing above a B -.