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(MA15+) ***
Director: Nima Nourizadeh.
Cast: Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Alexis Knapp.
THINK of the wildest, most awesome party that you would have loved to have attended as a teenager - that's what Project X is.
Unfortunately, that's all it is: one kick-arse party that would have made even Corey Worthington jealous, a crazy night filled of sex and drugs and riot police, but with no regard for plot at all.
It's as if they remembered to throw the shindig, but forgot to put the story on the guestlist.
In spite of its shortcomings, Project X does everything it says on the invite - it makes you feel like you had a great time, with a few laughs and a decent amount of excitement, but you won't take much away from it's meaningless shenanigans. And as with all good parties, you'll probably struggle to remember a lot of it in the morning.
Thomas (Mann) is the hapless host, whose 17th birthday has been hijacked by his mate Costa (Cooper). With Thomas' parents gone, Costa sees the weekend as an opportunity to throw the type of party that will elevate them onto the cool list and get them the girls they've only ever dreamed about.
Naturally, the party they throw gets well out of hand.
That's where the plot to Project X starts and finishes - "boys throw party, things go wrong" is as far as the screenwriters got. Even then, they back away from much of the violence and horrible things that could potentially happen at a soiree where there is lots of liquor, plenty of drugs and an abundance of girls willing to take their tops off.
That's not to say nothing happens, but the ace up the filmmakers' sleeve is the "found footage" approach. Predominantly shot by a weird guy named Dax (Dax Flame) who is on hand to document the party - with additional footage from party-goers, news crews and even police car cameras - Project X works nicely within the handheld realm, only rarely feeling staged. In the final half of the film, when things get really out of hand, it reaches impressive levels as chaos takes hold and we get the scene from multiple angles with seemingly a total disregard for human safety.
But the trick to attending any party is knowing when to leave, and the film outstays its welcome. It also struggles with its aftermath ending, unwilling to moralise and unable to leave its characters on a total downer despite the carnage wrought by their decadent celebration.
Project X is lively and gives you a sense of being at the party, but with no plot and little in the way of character development, it's little more than a home movie from a night with friends.
Fortunately it's the best party you've ever been to and those friends number in the thousands.