Product Description

Kirsten Dunst (BRING IT ON), Sisqo, and Ben Foster (TV's FREAKS AND GEEKS) shine in this hilariously hip comedy! After Berke (Foster) gets dumped by Allison, the hottest girl in school, he'll do anything to get her back! Against the advice of his buddies Dennis (Sisqo) and Felix (Colin Hanks -- THAT THING YOU DO!), Berke desperately follows Allison into the high school play! But when he's inept onstage, Berke gets bailed out by his friend's little sister (Dunst) ... who just might be the one to help him get over Allison! Also featuring Martin Short (FATHER OF THE BRIDE) and Shane West (DRACULA 2000) -- nothing goes as planned in this entertaining treat!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10628 in DVD
• Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
• Released on: 2001-08-14
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 87 minutes

Amazon.com
If you see one Kirsten Dunst teen flick, make it the haunting The Virgin Suicides (1999) or the charming cheerleading comedy Bring It On (2000) before you reach for this film, Tommy O'Haver's shambling follow-up to Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss (with Will and Grace's Sean Hayes as Billy). Despite Dunst's appealing performance as aspiring songwriter Kelly, this romantic comedy is rarely very romantic or comic. Ben Foster, so compelling in Barry Levinson's semiautobiographical Liberty Heights (1999), is quite the wet blanket as clumsy basketball player Berke (Berke?). Granted, his long-time girlfriend, Allison (Melissa Sagemiller), dumps him during the opening credits to the tune of "Love Will Keep Us Together" (a highlight), but it's still hard to see what Kelly would find so attractive about such a sleepy-eyed sad sack. Superior teen comedies Clueless and American Pie would seem to have influenced the candy-colored sets, gross-out humor, and topless babes, but the magic is mostly missing. And magic is the key word as the plot mostly revolves around a musical adaptation (directed by Martin Short's flamboyant drama teacher) of A Midsummer Night's Dream in which Kelly, Berke, Allison, her new boyfriend Striker (Shane West as a vapid pop star), and Dennis (real-life pop star Sisqó) perform. Life imitates art at the end as Berke's Dream-inspired fantasies become reality... but the story would have been more interesting if told from Kelly's point of view. With Colin Hanks as Kelly's overprotective brother and Swoosie Kurtz and Ed Begley Jr. as Berke's permissive parents. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Customer Reviews

Teen Movie With A Twist
The intro of the movie was pretty average - boy befriends girl... girl moves away... girl comes back and has a hot romance with boy in high school... girl dumps boy...
Then the movie becomes interesting... as Berke (Ben Foster), leaves his ex-girlfriend's, Allison (Melissa Sagemiller), front lawn, the music of "Love Will Keep Us Together" plays and Vitamin C comes out of the garage with her band singing to the tune following Berke down the street. Pretty soon we see people joining in from a newly wed couple, to the UPS delivery woman, to two garbage men doing cartwheels, and more dancing to the tune of "Love Will Keep Us Together". It's really hilarious. To top it off, a marching band joins in and it can't get any funnier than that. From that moment on, I knew this movie was going to be a winner. It was funny all throughout the movie with Martin Short playing Dr. Desmond Forrest Oates, a flamboyant drama/music teacher, to two of Berke's best friends Dennis (Sisqo) and Felix (Colin Hanks), to Bentley "Striker" Lawrence (Shane West), a Backstreet Boys wan-na-be, who becomes Allison's new main squeeze, to his eccentric liberal parents. Then you have Kelly (Kirsten Dunst) helping Berke out in a Shakespeare play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream", in which she is also a part of, as a scheme to get Allison back. The movie evolves around the Shakespeare play and in it has funny moments and amusing musical numbers excluding "Dream Of Me" which I thought wasn't funny at all but a beautiful song sang by Kirsen Dunst. The movie also has cameo appearances by Carmen Electra and Coolio. The movie was great, but the end made it even more special. Just when I thought it was over, Sisqo does a special performance of "September", with Vitamin C, which made me want to buy this movie. I still can't get this song out of mind, not that I want to. It's that good. Too bad "September" is not in the soundtrack album. I think getting this movie just for the music alone is worth it, but the movie overall is a winner.

A Teen Comedy That's Actually Funny And Enjoyable.....
I went to go see this movie the day it opened which also happened to be my birthday. I was hoping to see a fairly good movie, something hopefully better than such recent dissapointments as Loser, Boys And Girls or Dude, Where's My Car?. I was actually suprised to find myself not only liking this movie, but laughing as though it were an adult comedy. This movie is one of the few recent teen comedies that have actually had heart and humor... Ben Foster plays Berke, a guy who is very in love with this girl Allison. Things are going great until Allison realizes that she is no longer in love with Berke and decides to dump him.. So to win back her heart he decides to join the school's production of A Midsummer's Night Dream even though he doesn't know alot about Shakespeare. Not wanting to look like a fool, he turns to his best friend's little sister Kelly, played by Kirsten Dunst, who is very into Shakespeare for help. And before you know it Kelly falls in love with Berke and Berke is too blinded to notice because of Allison... This all seems very generic, but its very talented and charming cast livens things up and turns what could have been another teen dud into a very funny, romantic and heart warming story. Kirsten Dunst is just as perfectly suited in this role as she was in last summer's smash hit Bring It On. Ben Foster looks like he will be a very talented young actor and he is very believable in this movie as the average teenage guy who doesn't look like Freddie Prinze Jr. or Ryan Phillippe. The rest of the cast is perfect. Everyone including Colin Hanks, Sisqo, Mila Kunis, Vitamin C, Shane West, Kylie Bax and even a brief cameo from Carmen Electra help keep this movie fun and refreshing. But the reason to go see this movie is to watch Martin Short who is so funny you might want to take an extra pair of underpants! He plays the the director of the school play who is very into his work and very into criticizing his assistant and his cast. There have been better movies, but as far as teen movies go, especially the newer ones, this is one of the best. And for those of you who used to be John Hughes freaks, like myself, you'll find that this movie is like taking a nostalgic look at some of the great classics... And I think this is a classic too.

For every person who's ever been dumped and couldn't let go
Berke (Ben Foster) has the perfect relationship with his high school sweetheart girlfriend Allison (Melissa Sagemiller) until one day she up and decides that she wants out and kicks him to the curb.

Berke just can't let go of her despite the pleading of his two best friends Felix (Colin Hanks) and Dennis (Sisqo). To complicate matters even further, Allison falls for a popular boy band singer (think NSYNC), who just happens to go to their high school. Ordinary Berke just doesn't have a chance against the British accented pop sensation, but it doesn't stop him from trying anyway -- usually with some hilarious and I-feel-your-pain embarrassing moments.

With the help from Felix's younger sister, Kelly (Kirstin Dunst), Berke hatches a plan to win back the love of his life by going head-to-head with Allison's new love in the school play. Kelly ends up falling for Berke, who is too concerned with Allison to even take notice. And so the story goes and you'll just have to watch it to see how it turns out.

Colin Hanks is hilarious with his wise cracks and over-protectiveness of his sister -- especially with lines like "Hey man! Hands off the sister!" Unlike "Crazy/Beautiful" Kirstin Dunst, we get to see the cute and charming Kirstin Dunst we saw in "Bring It On". I'm not a Sisqo fan, but he does a great job in this movie and might turn out to be an okay actor.

All in all, I liked this movie alot. It is definitely a movie I could watch over and over again.