With “Spring Break,” the question is raised – Do we really need a documentary on spring break?
Well…not really. Come on, all of the “Girls Gone Wild” tapes and voyeuristic websites focusing on spring break debauchery have given us all we want to see on the subject – naked flesh and the occasional drunken jackass. Even MTV and “Wild on E!” have done a thorough job with their PG-13 representations so that even 50-year-old men can have the fullest spring break experiences, knowing the ins and outs of all the major hot spots and seeing enough boobs to make them feel like strapping young lads once again. So a documentary on spring break? Fortunately for us, this film has a few more points of interest than just blatant tits and a*s. So for you perverts out there who plan on groping your rod to this flick – put it away, you’re in for a disappointment.
“Spring Break” has several college students turned filmmakers, head off to different spring break locations, armed with cameras, with one rule in mind – THE CAMERAS MUST KEEP ROLLING. Separating itself from the “Girls Gone Wild” body of work, this documentary has us become somewhat familiar with our on-camera subjects as we delve into their weeklong sin binge. Now, at first, I wasn’t very impressed at all. I mean, I appreciated the kind of “Real World” spin on the “Spring Break” titty flick, but to make a fully riveting documentary, I think a more drastic take was in need. Say, arm a bunch of Mormons with cameras and send them to Cancun to see how they hold up, or maybe ship some camera happy rodeo clowns to Jamaica and watch the trouble unfold. A bunch of h***y, booze and drug thirsty college students heading to spring break isn’t the most novel idea on the planet.
But more than just T&A, we watch these guys explore the exotic locales – hiking, climbing pyramids, and swimming through rivers. This is all to the good and everything and it’s nice to know these people can appreciate such beauty right before…the booze is slammed, the drugs are snorted and smoked and the titties and wieners are taken out for some fresh air. That’s right – WIENERS! For the ladies out there, there’s a good supply of cactus supplied in this documentary for your peeping pleasure. This is an equal opportunity documentary.
Speaking of the ladies – one of the film crews heads out with a couple of girls in tow, so we get a female perspective on the whole spring break phenomenon (epidemic?). It’s a fresh look in contrast to what we usually see – h***y guys trying to cop a feel. But the best part about this perspective is that we get to see one female start out, ready to have fun, and towards the end of the trip she winds up sick of all the male-macho bullshit and crying in the street that she just wants to go home. Not to sound like a dick or anything, but that’s the kinda s**t I wanna see. I could give a f**k about “Girls Gone Wild”…I wanna see “Girls Gone Broken-Spirited.” Yum.
And that brings me to one of the major points of interest in this documentary – separating the wimps from the REAL party animals. At film’s start, all of these guys talk s**t about how they’re going to become party animal superheroes for the weeklong spring break vacation – staying up the entire time, drinking all they can, doing every drug known to mankind and f*****g as many women as possible – these are the boys talking, of course. But towards the end of the film, we get to see who actually survives to drink, drug and screw another day and who is curled up on a hotel bed, incapable of navigating the English language.
Another major point of interest comes at film’s end when we hear from all of these people for the last time, many of them surprised that they weren’t up to their eyes in p***y, but ultimately glad that they had the time of their lives hanging out with their friends. And EVERYONE is thrilled to get their a***s back home. Even the most hardened party animal is still a human being and the party can go on for only so long.
All in all, “Spring Break” isn’t groundbreaking in any way, shape or form, but it does provide plenty of amusement.
