Starring Jack Whitehall, Lindsay Adams, Kae Alexander, Jack Binstead, Harry Enfield, Iain Glen, Mathew Horne, Ethan Lawrence, Bruce Mackinnon, Nikki Runeckles, Joanna Scanlan, Layton Williams and Sarah Solemani. Written by Jack Whitehall and Freddy Syborn. Directed by Elliot Hegarty. 90 minutes long.
With his beloved class awaiting their GCSE results, perennial manchild and history teacher Alfie Wickers decides to take his class away for one last trip to Cornwall to get 'shit-faced'. However the attentions of an over protective parent complicates matters and ultimately leads to the group getting embroiled in a plot for Cornish independence, the local Cornwall Liberation Army and becoming branded terrorists hunted by both the police and an army of irate parents out for Alfie's head.
Your enjoyment of this film will all depend on your feelings towards the short lived, three-season BBC 3 series that ran from 2012 - 2014 and starred all of the major cast. If you loved the show, chances are you'll probably love this too, although it's only sporadically funny, starting very strongly but then getting bogged down and coasting till the ending where it gets its funny on again. That's not to say the bits in between are a laugh-free zone, only that it does become a little flat. However, if the idea of a half-naked man, with his nut-sac hanging out, flying through the air on a zip wire causes you to chuckle then you're in for a double treat. Actually come to think of it, if you're a fan of testicle based humour of any kind you're in for a special treat as poor Jack Whitehall's jewels get not only a healthy outing but also a healthy pummeling to boot.
The cast and Whitehall in particular are fun, but this film lacks the heart of the TV series, it's fun to see the cast taken out of the school and sent on holiday, which has been a staple of British TV sitcom adaptations since Holiday on the Buses, but it just doesn't really do much with the idea and when the plot with the Cornish Liberation Front finally kicks in, it sort of spoils the feel of the film, the fun always came from just how useless and dangerously insane Alfie Wickers was and the lengths he'd go to ingratiate himself with his class.
This isn't a horrible, laugh-free abomination like Absolutely Anything, indeed there are laughs aplenty to be had, it's just a very silly, slight and stupid film, but sometimes that's just what the doctor ordered.
5/10 (could do better, see me after class).
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