Bad Neighbours (Neighbors)

I really didn’t expect Bad Neighbours to be any good when I caught it on Friday night.

Starring Seth Rogen and Zac Efron as a married father and frat boy respectively, I had the preconception the movie would be full of unfunny jokes, a ridiculous amount of nudity and an endless supply of drugs.

They succeeded in ticking two of those boxes, with Bad Neighbours turning out to be one of the funniest movies I’ve watched.

This film is off the chain.

The perfect setup sees Rogen and Australian actress Rose Byrne as married couple Mac and Kelly Radner, who are raising their infant daughter in a quiet neighbourhood. Their next door neighbour suddenly moves out one day, and after a small period of anticipation, discover the new occupants are one of their worst nightmares.

Teddy Saunders (Efron), Pete (Dave Franco), Scoonie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, or McLovin from Superbad as he’s more widely recognised) are just three of the college kids who are part of Delta Psi, a fraternity house known for their amazingly wild parties.

The rest of the film is focuses on the Radners attempting to continue their lives as per normal, but a lack of peace causes them to do all they can to get their new neighbours evicted.

I found myself laughing for most of the movie – and not just the “ha ha it’s Seth Rogen doing drugs and being crazy” laugh, I mean I was bursting at the seams. The lengths the warring neighbours go to to drive the other out aren’t original (apart from the Delta Psi crew “relocating” the Radner’s car airbags – that was amazing), the way they are presented is simply brilliant.

Lisa Kudrow has a small but brilliant role as Carol, with Ike Barinholtz and Ali Cobrin hilarious as divorced couple Jimmy and Whitney who the Radner’s turn to for help.

For me the winning performances (apart from the gags) are from the Delta Psi crew. I’ve avoided many Efron films because he was “that guy from High School Musical”, but this has made me want to check out his other recent roles. Franco continues to be great in everything he does, Mintz-Plasse is all class while Jerrod Carmichael (Garf) and Craig Roberts (Assjuice) deliver some side-splitting scenes.

Lastly the soundtrack is freakin sweet. There’s quite a bit of dubstep and doof-doof that sets the parties alive and feeling the cinemas subwoofers struggle made me feel like I was there.

Watch it in a cinema as I’m not convinced it will be as awesome on the small screen.

Note: Released as "Bad Neighbours" in the UK and Australia and "Neighbours" everywhere else.