Summer School

Summer School casts Mark Harmon as Freddy Shoop, an easygoing teacher who’s forced into skipping his vacation to teach a group of misfits before the new semester starts – with the loose narrative detailing the mismatched group’s various exploits (and their eventual efforts at buckling down to save Mr. Shoop’s job). There’s ultimately little doubt that Summer School, much like its affable lead character, comes off as a likeable yet somewhat forgettable piece of work, as director Carl Reiner delivers a lackadaisically-paced comedy that’s short on big laughs or engrossing sequences – with the decidedly episodic bent of Jeff Franklin’s screenplay perpetuating the film’s less-than-memorable atmosphere. It’s clear, increasingly so, that the picture’s hit-and-miss environment is more miss than hit, as the narrative’s been suffused with sequences and subplots of a palpably underwhelming nature – which, in turn, ensures that the movie’s momentum grows more and more tenuous as time progresses. And yet Summer School nevertheless manages to mostly sustain one’s interest for the duration of its 97 minutes, with the film benefiting substantially from the almost uniformly strong work of its various actors. (Harmon is especially charming and engaging here.) The end result is a decent-enough ’80s comedy that rarely treads any new or novel ground, which is a shame, certainly, given the potential afforded by its seemingly can’t-lose premise.

**1/2 out of ****