A Look at Todd Phillips and the Frat Boy World View

Scene from War Dogs
As the summer movie season winds down, it's interesting to see what lies in August; or what is commonly referred to as the lesser of summer months. For decades now, August has been a dumping ground for the B-Level of Hollywood's blockbuster output and - with limited exceptions - never does as well as June or July. Sure, this is more of a stereotype than the truth, but it does make every release have a certain curiosity to it. In the case of director Todd Phillips' latest Ward Dogs, it looks to be a comedy filmmaker tackling political satire in ways reminiscent of director Adam McKay's The Big Short last year. Of course, that did pretty well for McKay. However, one must wonder why we should care about Phillips' work, especially since his most recent resume has three movies in The Hangover series. I'm not saying that you have to like him, but he may be one of our mainstream comedy auteurs that doesn't get enough credit for his vision.
The term auteur is something that seems reserved for your prestigious directors. They're your Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, or even Steven Spielberg. They're filmmakers whose work can legitimately be called art with distinguished flourishes. However, I do think that auteur is a term that can also be ascribed to work by inconsistent and sometimes bad directors. Maybe they aren't the best to use the moniker, but it is important to use it to understand the extent of the auteur theory, which translated from French to man "Author." In the realm of comedy, it becomes difficult to suggest that even the best of the recent class are auteurs. While one could apply it to Mel Brooks or Woody Allen, can someone do it to Judd Apatow or Paul Feig and produce flawless results? Not exactly, though they're close.
The one obvious truth is that Phillips' style of comedy is out of fashion. Most comedies don't like to tackle stories about grown men participating in pranks and public destruction without consequence. Maybe it's that The Hangover trilogy sucked the good will out of the original, but that is about as clear of a testament to the obsolescence that things get. His movies are mean and often reluctant to the societal changes that dictates that making fun of gays and women is unacceptable. While it would've been far more tolerable even a decade ago when the regaled "Frat Pack" released comedies like Wedding Crashers, it seems to be met with an eye roll on this particular occasion. With War Dogs, it should be interesting to see a director known for wild antics actually try and set his style in a bigger situation. This time, he has Miles Teller and Jonah Hill running $300 million worth of arms in the Middle East. To the best of the trailers' abilities, they look like they carry the frat boy charm that Phillips is known for.
Following a documentary career that saw work on G.G. Allin and literal frat parties, Phillips transitioned into fictional film making. One could easily look at his early work and see where the auteur theory begins. It is present in Road Trip - where Tom Green gives a tour of a college while sharing a story of his friends' quest to track down a sex tape while wild antics happen. He would return to the grounds in Old School - where an older group of men start a fraternity in a film that helped to launch Will Ferrell's cinema career by giving him one of his most iconic early performances. This is at the point where things are most clear. What type of cinema is he the author of? He's the author of frat boy comedy. While many could look at other directors and notice this mindset present throughout several films, Phillips seems to have an obsession with it that bleeds into every last one of his films.
The idea of fraternity is that there's a group of men bonding over their primitive behaviors. This sometimes means excluding and berating women and anyone who doesn't fit their specific ideals. To some extent, Phillips is satirizing this by putting the characters in humiliating situations - such as Ferrell streaking in Old School. It's a very masculine world view, and it leads to a specific style of comedy. While it ranges from high brow to low, it often is packed with slapstick and absurd situations to emphasize how degenerative the protagonists' behaviors are. No matter what, there seems to be a sympathy at its core that rewards the negligence and makes the argument that "boys will be boys."
While his later films don't necessarily tackle literal fraternities and their culture, it's hard not to imagine that the characters of The Hangover at least attended similar schools to that of Old School. They love to drink and aren't ashamed to be woken up in a state of confusion, especially if it produces crass behavior. In The Hangover, the inciting incidents are glossed over in favor of a fun noirish comedy that tries to explain how tigers, Mike Tyson, and even marrying a stripper all somehow happened. It's a film about reckless behavior without the glorification, choosing to challenge the basic night of debauchery with a novel mystery. True, the characters are various degrees of reprehensible and the female characters in particular are shrews left on the sidelines. However, it summarizes nicely what Phillips' style wants to achieve. It wants to make partying and boozing it up into a form of art, in this case comedy.
To some extent, this is less obvious in the minor films of Phillips with Starsky and Hutch and School for Scoundrels. While both embody the male bonding that defines frat behavior, they aren't nearly as exclusive to the rambunctious side of things. Due Date comes closest to bridging the gap, in part because it co-stars The Hangover's Zach Galifianakis as a dimwit who bothers Robert Downey Jr. at every turn. It is Planes Trains and Automobiles without the sincerity and a whole lot more cursing (if you can believe that). Whatever the case may be, these films embody the frat behavior from an outsider's perspective as they try to escape the reckless behavior of youth with parenting and work. Still, the allure is there, and it inevitably leads to some of these films' most comedic moments. 
Admittedly, Phillips is very hit and miss if one wants to properly play the auteur card. However, he does have plenty of overlap. There's this weird character named Barry that Phillips has played in several films now despite serving little purpose to the grander story. There's the overlap in cast, which has included Galifianakis, Vince Vaughn, and Bradley Cooper returning in a variety of roles. They all exist in a world of comedy where frat behavior isn't decried upon so much as put up with. The Hangover films are one exception, as they show how bad behavior leads to some unpredictable results. While this is sometimes a helpful factor, the subsequent sequels had a familiarity that likely made the drinking and recklessness go from seeming cute to just plain sad.
The truth is that Phillips is an auteur, even if he's not one that suits most people's sensibilities. It's hard to not look at his filmography and see his fascination with fraternities and how they unite men. He's even produced a fair share of other directors' work, including Project X. Whatever the case may be, it should be interesting to see what his first post-Hangover movie will look like, and if it will manage to make political satire work alongside drinking and partying. Whatever the case may be, he's an assured comedic director that knows what he's doing. Maybe he could be doing better stories, but at least what he does is consistent with his world view.

Comments