‘Neighbors’ Movie Review: Seth Rogen delivers a raunchy, hysterical guilty pleasure

Everybody has guilty pleasures in life; those things that we just don’t want anyone else to know that we really enjoy.

I hope you can see where this is going.

The latest Seth Rogen film, Neighbors, is one of those movies.

I’d love to say in educated circles that I found it repulsive, unintelligent, and disgusting, but the fact is that I missed several lines in the film because the crowd (including me) was laughing so loudly that I couldn’t hear the dialogue.

Be warned, the movie has a well-deserved R rating.  I wouldn’t suggest watching it with your parents or your children, but it’s definitely a side-splitting comedy for those of us who just want to let our hair down and spend two hours laughing out loud.

Rogen and his wife (played by Rose Byrne) are a young married couple with the most beautiful baby to grace the silver screen in years. (No kidding, this baby steals every scene she’s in with her adorable smile.) The young couple is sadly accepting the changes in their lives associated with parenting as they transition from a fun-loving, carefree couple to owning their first home and settling into the daily pattern of working and raising a child.

When the house next door is bought by the Delta Psi Beta fraternity, the couple wants to be “cool neighbors” to the frat boys, but end up losing out to the responsibility of providing a safe and peaceful environment for raising their daughter.

As soon as Rogen is “uncool” and phones in a noise complaint, it’s on and the battle commences.

This is not an Animal House type movie. There is a ton of fraternity humor about drinking and partying, but the writers did an excellent job of actually working a story in between every hysterical moment on screen.

Zac Efron does a wonderful job as the fraternity president desperately trying to go down in Delta Psi history because his college days are coming to an end and so will the all-night parties. His faithful vice-president (played by Dave Franco) goes along with most of the pranks but is also the voice of reason as he questions if the neighborly feud has gone too far and turns his focus towards his future.

The dialogue between these characters is responsible for a huge portion of the big laughs and Efron will surely contribute greatly to the financial success of the film by limiting the wardrobe budget and appearing in most of the film shirtless or at least sleeveless.

For some reason, it seems he was the only main character half-dressed for a great portion of the film…except when Rogen would add his half-naked humor into the mix.

The biggest laughs are between Rogen and Byrne.

The writers did not hold back at all in their dialogue and took their most intimate moments and mishaps and left the audience in uncontrollable fits of laughter while still highlighting these two individuals as a loving couple facing a unique challenge.

Overall, one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in years. If you’re comfortable with Rogen humor, you’ll have a great time watching this film. Just know that you’ll probably want to see it a couple of times to catch all the jokes that you’ll miss because of the audience laughter.

Overall: Neighbors receives 4 out of 5 stars

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Guest Reviewer: Debbie Picallo Sage

Neighbors is directed by Nick Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek).