The Binge was released on August 28th and is currently available for personal streaming on Hulu. Set in the not too distant future, when all alcohol and drugs are banned from everyone in the United States, The Binge focuses on the stressful lives of 3 teenage boys trying to attend an exclusive party on the one night of the year when all drug and alcohol consumption is legal for everyone. It's like a merging of the films The Purge (2013) and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).
In case you have forgotten, watching teenagers get drunk, high, and beaten up is hilarious and fresh comedy.....to some people. But not to me!! Crazy raunchy comedies can be funny and memorable when they're smartly written and well-acted like Superbad (2007), Blockers (2018), and Booksmart (2019). But The Binge tries so hard to check all the boxes of a lewd teen comedy, it ends up being an overzealous, infantile, and ridiculous mess of predictability. Not even a climactic and belabored musical number can save this comedy from recycled jokes, empty acting, and flat stereotypes.
Every generation has its popular teen comedy films (some more successful than others and some more filthy than others) like American Graffiti (1973), Porky's (1981), Revenge of the Nerds (1984), Dazed and Confused (1993), or American Pie (1999). Sadly, The Binge will not be a movie the current teen generation remembers at all. The only thing I will remember from this movie is that, when it ended, I was in a worse mood than when it started.
