Rehash of old theme fails to hit the mark

The heavily recycled war-of- the-greeks theme, first made popular in the early 1980s, has returned to the screen in an updated form with the cross-gender comedy Sorority Boys. The film is filled to the brim with the crude, embarrassing humour of its predecessors; however its sole joke fails to leave an impact.

Dave (Barry Watson), Doofer (Harland Williams), and Adam (Michael Rosenbaum) are the only members of the KOK (surprise, surprise, it’s pronounced ‘cock’) fraternity social committee.

During one bash, the money the house had saved to sponsor the annual KOKtail Cruise is stolen and the three bumbleheads are accused of pilfering the money. They are banished from the house. They then return for the next night’s party to find out who really took the money.

To get into the party, though, they need a disguise. What better way to fool their fraternity brothers than to show up at the party as women? Daisy, Roberta, and Adina go to the party to find a hidden video camera that recorded the true thief in the act. All they need to do is find the videotape and their innocence will be revealed.

If it were only so easy. But instead, they are tossed out of the party during the ceremony known as dogcatcher — usually reserved for getting rid of the unattractive women of the neighbouring Delta Omicron Gamma (DOG — clever, huh?) sorority.

Leah (Melissa Sagemiller), the feminist DOG sorority president, feels sorry for the masculine-looking girls and offers them a room in her sorority where they can be around other aesthetically challenged co-eds. While living inside the house and plotting their moves to find evidence inside the KOK house, the three get in touch with their softer side by dealing with tampons, dildos, make-up and dresses.

Director Wallace Wolodarsky chooses to retell the same jokes over and over, poking fun at the flaws and vulnerabilities of the DOG house women. There are only so many jokes about the degradation of women we can endure in order to get the point of the film.

We see Adina walk down the sidewalk and get harassed by the same frat boys driving by in their car on four different occasions. Enough already; we get it.

Sorority Boys spends too much of its time on this same joke when more time could have been devoted to the comedy of these guys trying to keep their true identities under wraps. Are the girls of the DOG house so naïve that they cannot see their new houseguests are men?

With the lack of intelligence running rampant at this unnamed college, the joke could have gone on forever.