'Neighbors'

After last summer’s “This Is The End,” I had a sneaking suspicion that all the homoerotic subtext in bro-comedies had crossed the border into straight homoeroticism.

With “Neighbors,” an uproarious comedy in which a married couple spar with a bunch of frat boys who move in next door, my inkling was completely confirmed.

Not only does the fraternity’s president (Zac Efron) spend a large portion of the movie shirtless, he also spends it taking molds of his penis with his brothers and squeezing his best friend’s (Dave Franco) testicles during a brawl. And it’s all relentlessly
hilarious.

The premise is ridiculous. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne play Mac and Kelly Radner, a new-age couple who have just had a baby girl and who still feel the urge to have fun and party. But when a fraternity moves in next door, they unsuccessfully try to play it cool before setting in motion an epic faceoff between neighbors.

The story flies only because Rogen and Byrne play Mac and Kelly like the most sincere of couples. Sure, he’s a little tubby and aloof while she’s gorgeous and slightly more collected. But they play off each other with a genuineness you don’t see between most couples on screen, or in reality. On the flip side, Efron, Franco and their brothers play their characters to the edge of parody without ever toppling over into dumb silliness.

They’re very self-aware performances, but they’re still finely tuned and honest.
Director Nicholas Stoller, who brought the same conviviality to movies like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “The Five-Year Engagement,” seems poised on the edge of making his best work. He plays it fast and loose, letting his actors riff on the joke instead of getting bogged down in anything too heavy.

It is, after all, a comedy, and there’s no better way to make a good comedy than to let a bunch of funny people be funny together. The cast is top-notch, every single one of them. Byrne is particularly sensational and the real standout, which makes it a shame when you realize she’s the only lead female in a movie of seriously funny dudes.

“Neighbors” might not come close to passing the Bechdel test and it tends to feel like a one-trick pony once it’s all said and done. It’s uncompromisingly vulgar and features some of the most overly stimulating party sequences ever put on screen. Fortunately, that makes it a damn good pony with one hell of a trick.