THE INBETWEENERS

UK, 2011, 100 minutes, Colour.
Simon Bird, Blake Harrison, James Buckley, Joe Thomas.
Directed by Ben Palmer)

Somebody remarked that this is a UK version of the American Pie comedies of coming of age, of sex preoccupation (adolescent male variety in the course of, we hope, maturing into adults, but some of the signs don’t look so good), of crass humour. Four young fellows finish at school and go on a holiday to the Greek islands for sun, booze, sex and... sex.

Now you know whether you want to see the film or not.

If you do, it’s more or less as expected. If you don’t, no loss.

However, there was one lesson to learn. This reviewer, when faced with crass humour, will opt for the British version over the American version. The British can be more subtly funny, especially in their characterisations which do acknowledge stupidity and crassness in a way that Americans usually don’t. They also have a sense of irony which means that there can be an edge in the humour, something which is ordinarily absent from the American comedies.