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The Long Weekend

 (U.K. - Canada)

By PETER DEBRUGE

A Gold Circle Films release of a A Long Weekend UK and Brightlight Pictures production. Produced by Paul Brooks, Shawn Williamson. Executive producers, Vin Di Bona, Peter Safran, Scott Niemeyer, Stephen Hegyes. Directed by Pat Holden. Screenplay, Tad Safran.
 
With: Chris Klein, Brendan Fehr, Chandra West, Craig Fairbrass, Paul Campbell, Cobie Smulders.
 

"The Long Weekend" faces an unusual challenge: How to build a movie around a collection of "America's Funniest Home Videos" submissions too extreme for TV. The resulting predictably off-color sex comedy about two brothers determined to get laid, is neither American (the U.K.-Canadian co-prod was shot in Vancouver) nor funny, and dismal first-week business in Los Angeles suggests Gold Circle Films might have done better to release this witless compilation directly to home video.

In "American Pie," Chris Klein played the sentimental stud who decided not to give up his virginity too quickly. In "The Long Weekend," he's graduated to self-absorbed player, a horn dog who doesn't understand why his asocial younger brother Ed (Brendan Fehr) is still stuck on his ex when there are so many available women. To cheer him up, Cooper (Klein) devotes the weekend to finding a bedmate for his brother.

The sex-starved siblings court Playmate-worthy women at one location after another except that instead of getting lucky, each desperate encounter climaxes in embarrassment.

Ironically, Klein's animated "American Pie" co-star Jason Biggs might have pulled off the kid-brother role, but Fehr merely seems mopey when reacting to outrageous situations.

Pic's one unique conceit is the inclusion of equally embarrassing home-video footage, which the screenplay tries to justify by explaining that Ed's character spent his formative years living vicariously through a viewfinder.

Although camerawork looks slick enough to support theatrical release, most of the dialogue sounds as if it was looped in-studio after the fact.

Camera (color), Brian Pearson; editor, Martin Brinkler; music, David A. Hughes; music supervisor, Don Gallacher; production designer, James Steuart; costume designer, Karen L. Matthews; casting, Maureen Webb. Reviewed at Fairfax Theater, Los Angeles, June 12, 2006. Running time: 89 MIN.