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Dead Man On Campus

1998, Movie, R, 89 mins

DEAD MAN ON CAMPUS
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Surpise, surprise! This college comedy is better than you'd expect, given the lowbrow humor and scant plot. Josh (Tom Everett Scott) is a conscientious pre-med scholarship student who has the misfortune to land in the same dorm room with Cooper (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), a wealthy stoner who's completely unconcerned with his education. And they're both stuck with Kyle (Jason Segel), a Neanderthal in pants who lives in their suite's single room, until he mercifully abandons them to shack up with his girlfriend. Josh starts out the semester taking a slew of difficult science classes, but his ambitions are thwarted by Cooper's distracting, bon vivant ways. After disastrous midterm exam results and a nasty visit from Cooper's dad -- the king of toilet-cleaning -- both lads are in desperate need of a way out of their bad grade predicament. Enter that old collegiate canard about how you automatically get straight A's if your roommate kills himself: They embark upon a quest to find the most suicidal person on campus and move him in to Kyle's old room. The story's not much, but this dark comedy contains moments of unexpected wit. Gosselaar gives a spirited and funny performance, as does Lochlyn Munro in the role of Cliff, one of the more promising wackos. Unlike most comedies, this one actually picks up steam about halfway through, managing to find a fresh take on such all-too-familiar campus fixtures as depressed Goths and paranoid computer geeks. leave a comment --Sandra Contreras
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