"Foreign Exchange" (2008) is a high school comedy in the manner of 1999's "American Pie," but with a lower budget. I'm not a fan of "American Pie" or 2001's "Not Another Teen Movie" simply because they're too raunchy for my tastes; but that's just me. "Foreign Exchange" has quite a bit of raunch too and, in fact, begins with a scene of a teen masturbating in bed, but it's arguably not as bad as those other movies on this front.
While all these films exaggerate the teen years for comedic purposes, do they - generally speaking - reflect real life? The answer is yes, which is WHY they're funny. For instance, do many teen dudes masturbate in bed to a photo of a babe? Of course. Now, this isn't likely something you want to SEE, but the film's making light of those fun-but-awkward teen years. Furthermore, despite a brief scene of three girls flashing their breasts, the sleaze is all talk or, at best, implied. And isn't that also the way it is in high school, except for the neighborhood Fonz (i.e ultra-cool guy who gets all the babes)? Jay (Randy Wayne) fits this description in the film and, less so, Shantz (Daniel Booko). And then there's the hardaxx principal of the school. I had one of those - a former Marine who always rolled his short sleeves up to show off his muscles & Marine Corps Emblem tattoo - albeit in the movie it's a woman, Jennifer Coolidge, and she's genuinely funny. And then there's the stoner smart kid, Hashbrown (Miles Thompson) and quite a few pot-smoking scenes. Again, these things reflect the real-life high school years.
While "Foreign Exchange" is clearly low-budget it's also obvious that the filmmakers took care to create memorable characters with excellent casting. The film also does well on the female front with precious Vanessa Lengies as Robyn leading the way. I say "precious" because she's a hugely likable character that you care about, like Dave does (Ryan Pinkston), particularly as the story develops. Ashley Edner is also on hand as the beautiful Jez. Tania Raymonde as Anita, the Brazilian exchange student, is the main female protagonist, along with Robyn, but she's too thin to trip my trigger. I also like the way the shining Asian girl, Mia Ho (Jessika Van), ultimately finds companionship despite being made out to be discard-able. It's elements like this that reveal the movie's warmth below the raunchy garnish. The second half starts to mark time, however, so I can't give it a higher rating.
The film runs 85 minutes and was shot in Los Angeles.
GRADE: B-
