Catch up, kids

Those mischievous boys get tiresome, but Cleese saves the sequel

THE original Spud was released during the 2010 December holidays and went on to earn R17-million, making it one of the most successful SA films. Now we have the film version of the second novel by Durban author John van de Ruit.

The same team, led by director Donovan Marsh, takes us back into that hectic period of puberty when boys are no longer boys but not yet men. The Crazy Eight, as these guys are called, have changed in different ways.

Spud (Troye Sivan) is still the smallest guy in the gang and is teased mercilessly. He doesn’t come from a rich family and it is always embarrassing to go back to school in his dad’s clapped-out car. In the years since the first film, his mother has given up on South Africa and wants the whole family to emigrate.

Meanwhile, the dad is getting some extra cash from their domestic worker, who runs a profitable shebeen in the back yard, and there is the elderly grandmother, nicknamed Wombat.

Spud may be skinny, but he is in a grand school and he’s clever, certainly smart enough to be one of the Crazy Eight. They are constantly harassed by the arrogant, bullying prefects, who are more or less a gang in their own right. In fact, one of their teachers, nicknamed “Sparerib” (Jason Cope), lets the prefects see to it that the Crazy Eight are always in trouble.

The real cornerstone of the film is John Cleese, who plays “the Guv”. He’s an ageing teacher, headed for retirement and he is in an unhappy place. He knows he is being edged out of the school by the snooty headmaster, nicknamed “The Glock” (Jeremy Crutchley), and he knows he should make a graceful exit, but he is a great teacher and he really does help the sharper boys to succeed.

When he sees Spud’s potential, he resolves to help him through to graduation, and then the old teacher will move on. Around that strong, albeit sentimental, plot line are all kinds of teenage shenanigans. They try out smoking and stolen liquor. There is a party involving girls from the nearby school, at which Spud starts thinking about girls in a way he has never done.

Towards the end, there’s an eating competition that was so vulgar, I had to look away. Even though the film runs for only 90 minutes, it felt longer, simply because the slapstick and reckless games turn stale.

Marsh, cinematographer Lance Gewer and production designer Tom Gubb keep the film looking bright and interesting but I could have done with less of the hi-jinks and more of the core of the story, which is the interaction between Spud and “the Guv”.