15, 110 mins
Beerfest scrapes barrels and knuckles. It’s another proudly lewd frat-boy farce from Broken Lizard, a troupe with not a natural comedian among them. Set around an underground drinking festival during the Oktoberfest in Munich, it’s like a Rocky sequel with binge drinking instead of boxing. If Sideways managed to give alcoholism an upscale intellectual twist, this does the opposite with its parade of national stereotypes, topless chicks, belching, urinating and yodelling — not necessarily in that order — and jokes about masturbating frogs and whorish grandmothers.
Donald Sutherland slums it as a dying grandfather, Jürgen Prochnow makes fun of his breakthrough role in Das Boot, comic veteran Cloris Leachman does rude things with bratwurst, and Willie Nelson turns up in a concluding gag that threatens a sequel, Potfest. Probably conceived with a crippling hangover, this is overlong and, even for a party-on movie, too often falls flat on its face.
IAN JOHNS