Themes: College Life, Going Undercover, Love Triangles
Main Cast: Adrian Grenier, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Joey Lauren Adams, Eric Stoltz, Rebecca Gayheart
Release Year: 2001
Country: US
Run Time: 97 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Director and screenwriter James Toback used his own experiences as a college student in the 1960s as the basis for this drama about a present-day student athlete who's bitten off more than he can chew. Alan Jensen (Adrian Grenier) is a college sophomore struggling to keep up with an unusually busy schedule -- while studying philosophy as a Harvard undergrad, he's also a point guard on the school's basketball team, and is juggling two girlfriends, cheerleader Cindy Bandolini (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Chesney (Joey Lauren Adams), a professor ten years his senior. As Alan tries to stay on top of his classes and keep his love life sorted out, he receives some bad news from his parents -- a tornado has devastated their home, and they need $100,000 to rebuild. Alan wants to help his parents, and as it happens, Cindy's father is a Mafia boss tied in with a number of powerful bookies. Cindy uses her family's connection to put Alan in touch with Teddy (Eric Stoltz), a bookie who's willing to give Alan $100,000 in exchange for throwing a few games and shaving some points. Cindy also uses her dad's bankroll to place a quarter-million dollar bet on the upcoming Harvard-Dartmouth game, certain Alan can ensure a predictable outcome. But when the games don't go quite the way Alan expected, despite his best worst effort, he finds himself in dutch with the Mafia, while also attracting the attention of FBI agents who've been investigating Teddy and his associates. Amidst this chaos, Alan hops a jet home to give his parents the ill-gotten $100,000, and on the flight back decides to relax mid-flight by dropping a heroic dose of LSD, which turns out not to be one of his better ideas. Harvard Man was originally intended to star Leonardo DiCaprio as Alan, but after the project was put on hold in 1994, DiCaprio rocketed to fame in Titanic, which priced himself out of the project by the time James Toback was able to return to it years later. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Harvard Man purports to be a realistic film about modern college life. Instead, it's a wacky combination of B-movie tropes, improbable plot twists, and graphic sex. Actors seem to have been cast for their faces and bodies more than for their thespian talents or suitability for the roles they play. Adrian Grenier, in the title role, has the dark good looks the role calls for, but he's a bit stiff. Sarah Michelle Gellar (TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer) plays a spoiled and unscrupulous mobster's daughter. She's an engaging actress, but the ridiculous machinations of the plot and the absurd dialogue leave her struggling. Raspy-voiced Joey Lauren Adams fares slightly better, surprisingly, as a threesome-loving Harvard philosophy professor. Her lectures on Heidegger and Kierkegaard are delivered convincingly enough, and it helps that Toback intercuts them with the aforementioned graphic sex scenes. The film jumps back and forth in time frequently, and with little recognizable purpose. The overly familiar plot, involving Grenier's decision to fix a basketball game to get his parents money to repair their home, is actually believable enough to carry the audience along until an unlikely FBI operation comes into play. At one point, Grenier, in the midst of an acid trip, escapes the FBI by leaping out the second floor window of the interrogation room. This doesn't quite ring true, but then again, this particular breed of FBI agent only exists in bad movies. Harvard Man is awful in a fun way for most of its running time, but the climactic dramatization of Grenier's acid trip, with its seemingly endless repetition of unpleasant sights and sounds, will likely leave audiences wishing the film would just end. James Toback is a self-indulgent filmmaker that viewers either love or hate, and Harvard Man fits in neatly with his oeuvre. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Ray Allen - Vince Capararo; Michael Aparo - Russell
Credit
Jeff Franks - Associate Producer, Felicia Fasano - Casting, Mary Vernieu - Casting, Anne McCarthy - Casting, J. Miles Dale - Co-producer, Maxyne Baker - Costume Designer, David McLeod - First Assistant Director, James Toback - Director, Suzy Elmiger - Editor, Michael Burns - Executive Producer, Donald Kushner - Executive Producer, Peter Locke - Executive Producer, Edward R. Pressman - Executive Producer, Jeff Sackman - Executive Producer, Ryan Shore - Composer (Music Score), Stomy Bugsy - Songwriter, Rupert Lazarus - Production Designer, David Ferrara - Cinematographer, Michael Mailer - Producer, Daniel Bigel - Producer, James Toback - Screenwriter, Ron Rotholz - Co-Executive Producer, Phil Mittleman - Co-Executive Producer
Harvard Man is a 2001feature film written and directed by James Toback. It had only a limited distribution in theatres in July 2002, and received little critical or popular acclaim, although it achieved some success when it was released on video and DVD in October of that year.
The story concerns Harvard student Alan Jensen (played by Grenier), the point guard of the Harvard basketball team. When his parents' house is destroyed by a tornado, Alan is desperate for $100,000 to replace their home. He is approached by his girlfriend Cindy Bandolino (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar), whose father is an organized crime boss. Cindy convinces Alan to throw the game for the money. She tells Alan that her father is behind the deal, but actually she goes to her father's associate, Teddy Carter (played by Stoltz), and Carter's assistant, Kelly Morgan (played by Gayheart) for funding. What she does not know is that Carter and Morgan are undercover FBI agents.
Alan throws the game, gives his parents the money, and then undergoes a psychedelic experience after he ingests a mega-dose of LSD, approximately 15,000 micrograms. There follows a long stretch of the film during which morphingspecial effects demonstrate Alan's altered state as he is pursued by Carter, while Cindy is collared by Morgan.
Just when it looks like a toss-up as to what will prove his downfall first, the bad trip, the FBI, or the mob, Alan's other girlfriend (who is also his philosophy lecturer), Chesney Cort (played by Adams), saves the day. Not only does she get Alan to a doctor who can bring him down from his monumental high, she reveals that she is in a sexual threesome with Carter and Morgan. Once he gets some photographic evidence for blackmail, Alan is extricated from his problems.
