Loser

The casting of Jason Biggs from American Pie and Mena Suvari from American Beauty looks like something from the wish list. The screenplay gangs up against them, however, and the potential for good times is wasted.

Biggs is a country boy who goes to college in New York where he suffers the humiliation of sharing rooms with a bunch of spaced-out party boys who tell him: "You talk weird and your clothes are lame."

Suvari is having a fling with her English professor (Gregg Kinnear at his most unctuous) which is so one-sided you wonder what's in it for her. Biggs only wants to help. The cool crowd mock and ridicule him. Suvari looks small, lost and vulnerable. No longer a sassy blonde with kiss-me-slow lips, she's mousy and squeaky, too dumb to equate high marks in Eng Lit with enthusiasm for the oral test after class.

Biggs doesn't have a chance to show what he can do. His appalling room mates are set up as japesters, leaving the country boy grinning weakly, as another insult comes winging his way.

The message of the movie is that nice guys don't win.