Script Misses Mark In Grim ‘Dead Man’

Fri., Aug. 21, 1998

Chris Hewitt St. Paul Pioneer Press

The other day I saw some chocolate-chip cookies that were made with real butter, but fake chocolate chips. Huh?

Why would anyone bother to use butter, then mess up the cookies with nasty, after-tasty, faux chocolate? Maybe for the same reason “Dead Man on Campus” was made with real actors, but a fake-o script. Several of the people who worked on “Dead Man” also worked on an earlier film produced by MTV, “Joe’s Apartment,” a credit that is suspiciously absent from their bios. But it’s the key credit because, in tone, quality and low laugh quotient, “Dead Man on Campus” is in the same grim ballpark as “Joe’s Apartment.”

It’s about two college roommates. One, played by Tom Everett Scot of “That Thing You Do!,” is a brain; the other, played by “Saved by the Bell’s” Mark-Paul Gosselaar, is a bongophile who probably couldn’t even spell “honor roll,” much less get on one.

Partying derails both of them so, at the end of the semester, they resort to a loophole in the campus guide - if their roommate commits suicide, they automatically get straight As. So they decide to find someone who’s on the brink of Kevorkianing himself and push him over the edge.

Quite a lot of people are going to think there’s nothing funny about that premise. I think it could work as a twisted, cynical comedy a la “Heathers,” but the folks who made “Dead Man” chickened out. Both Gosselaar and Scott are such evidently nice guys that we don’t believe they’d engage in that kind of shenanigans, and, where the movie needs to be dark and cynical, it’s bright and upbeat. Even the campus psycho, amusingly played by Lochlyn Munro, is always well-dressed and -groomed.

Gosselaar and Scott are both excellent, although too innately likable for their roles. The actors notwithstanding, though, “Dead Man on Campus” is about as much fun as waiting in line for two hours at the registrar’s office.

“Dead Man on Campus” Location: North Division, Spokane Valley Mall and Coeur d’Alene Cinemas Credits: Directed by Alan Cohn, starring Tom Everett Scott, Mark Paul Gosselaar Running time: 1:36 Rating: R

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