Project X (2012)

3 high school seniors throw a birthday party to make a name for themselves. As the night progresses, things spiral out of control as word of the party spreads.

Director:

Nima Nourizadeh

Writers:

Matt Drake (screenplay), Michael Bacall (screenplay),

Stars:

Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown

4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Thomas Mann	...	Thomas
Oliver Cooper	...	Costa
Jonathan Daniel Brown	...	JB
Dax Flame	...	Dax
Kirby Bliss Blanton	...	Kirby
Brady Hender	...	Everett
Nick Nervies	...	Tyler
Alexis Knapp	...	Alexis
Miles Teller	...	Miles
Peter Mackenzie	...	Dad
Caitlin Dulany	...	Mom
Rob Evors	...	Rob
Rick Shapiro	...	T-Rick
Martin Klebba	...	Angry Little Person
Pete Gardner	...	Older Guy

Storyline

Three seemingly anonymous high school seniors attempt to finally make a name for themselves. Their idea is innocent enough - let's throw a party that no one will forget, and have a camera there, to document history in the making. But nothing could prepare them for this party. Word spreads quickly as dreams are ruined, records are blemished and legends are born.

---

Plot Keywords:

party | high school | high school senior | birthday party | found footage | 

---

Taglines:

Witness it.

---

Genres:

Comedy

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for crude and sexual content throughout, nudity, drugs, drinking, pervasive language, reckless behavior and mayhem - all involving teens (also extended cut)

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 March 2012 (USA)

Also Known As:

Proyecto X

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$12,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$21,051,363 (USA) (2 March 2012)

Gross:

$54,724,272 (USA) (11 May 2012)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Green Hat Films, Silver Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital Datasat SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Many of the minor antics in the party were improvised by the extras, including the girl getting caught urinating because she actually had to urinate.

---

Goofs

When the neighbor knocks on the door and talks to Thomas, he tells him that his friend Oliver came over earlier to inform him about the party related noise. Oliver is actually the first name of the actor who played Costa, who was the one informing about the party. When Costa goes to the neighbors to tell them about the party, he introduces himself as Oliver. So, the neighbor is just using the name he was given.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Costa: What up my lovely females? This is your boy Costa, your host for the evening. Behind me is Thomas Kub's house. Today is Thomas Kub's birthday,
[grabs crotch]
Costa: and this is Project X, yo.

---

Connections

Followed by Untitled Project X Sequel

---

Soundtracks

"Trouble on My Mind"
Written by Pusha T (as Terrence Thornton), Tyler the Creator (as Tyler Okonma), Pharrell Williams & Chad Hugo
Performed by Pusha T & Tyler the Creator
Produced by Pharrell Williams (as The Neptunes), Chad Hugo (as The Neptunes), Sean C & LV & Vyron Dalyan Turner (as Left Brain)

User Reviews

Basically Superbad meets The Hangover, but with less interesting characters and a more exploitative, gratuitous, mean spirit.

As a preface to this review, before anyone's knee-jerk reaction is to dismiss my opinions as those of a prude: I'm not at all opposed to "hard-R" comedies. In fact, I love many of them. But something about this one rubbed me the wrong way - indeed, to even refer to it as a "movie" seems wrong: there were scenes chronicling the party that basically devolved into mini-music-videos focusing on naked girls. And not even in tantalizing ways -- rather, these scenes felt creepy (especially since a lot of the girls featured are supposed to be high schoolers) -- for example, the director relies upon paparazzi-style upskirt shots. And because the movie is shot a la Blair Witch/Cloverfield etc. with its "found footage" style, it only makes these shots seem all the dirtier and more voyeuristic.

Moving on past that stuff... other flaws: The fact that the main characters were so clichéd and stereotypical of the genre didn't help, either -- the Jonah Hill-type character from NYC was sporadically amusing but overall just seemed to be trying too hard: the mandatory overzealous good friend who's obsessed with girls and thinks he has game but doesn't. So, nothing original or distinct enough to make him different than any other sex comedy character. He made me laugh a couple times, but that's faint praise.

While the first half of the movie is sort of dumb fun, the second just gets derailed by increasingly silly, unrealistic, borderline disturbing stuff - e.g. a huge sequence with a dude wielding a flamethrower at the end was not just stupid but kind of terrifying, like it belonged in a completely different film.

I also didn't like the 'moral' of the story or whatever you want to call its attempts to reconcile its events. Unfortunately I can't discuss it without spoiling the film, but suffice to say the "feel-good" moral closure of Project X felt like an attempt at Risky Business without any of the actual morality behind it. Not to mention the main character wasn't half as likable or realistic as the Tom Cruise character, despite ostensibly looking more like an actual high schooler than Cruise did - alas, that's why good writing is key. The only word I can use to describe the film is...sleazy, but not in a good way.

Think back on what made films like Superbad so much better than much of their genre: it was the characters. They said and did a lot of crude, dumb stuff, but they were rendered as realistic and likable kids and we could relate to them. When they were put in compromising situations - like an out of control party - it was funny because, as corny as this sounds, we cared. They weren't throwaway caricatures of teenagers, or one-dimensional mean-spirited idiots.

In Project X, whose various elements and characters are basically ripped off of superior teen films, you don't particularly care about any of these kids - nor can you relate to them. Is the film enjoyable? People in the theater laughed - I imagine it'll appeal to its primary demographic, which is the teen/college crowd - but I think years from now those viewers will look back on movies like The Hangover and Superbad and realize why those were better.

(P.S. Don't be fooled by misleading marketing -- while this film was indeed produced by Todd Phillips, he did not direct it. The studio is capitalizing on his involvement - and can you blame them for it when the Hangover films have made like a billion dollars worldwide? - but apart from a producer credit, he didn't have anything to do with this flick.)