PCU

Directed by Hart Bochner, PCU details the chaos that ensues within on a college campus after Jessica Walter’s president attempts to shut down a notorious fraternity (led by Jeremy Piven’s Droz). Filmmaker Bochner, working from a screenplay by Adam Leff and Zak Penn, delivers a perpetually irreverent comedy that is, for the most part, quite watchable and often legitimately funny, as the movie, which runs an appropriately brisk 79 minutes, benefits from its easygoing atmosphere and raft of charismatic performances – with, in terms of the latter, Piven’s personable turn certainly matched by such eclectic periphery players as David Spade, Jon Favreau, and Megan Ward. And while the sketch-comedy, episodic bent of Leff and Penn’s script results in a fairly hit-and-miss atmosphere, PCU generally (and predominantly) succeeds as a compulsively watchable endeavor that never comes close to wearing out its welcome.

*** out of ****