Three lifelong cheaters wise up in this gross-out college comedy, which marks the second feature role for
Rushmore star
Jason Schwartzman. It's the last semester of senior year for roomies Dave (
Devon Sawa), Sam (
Jason Segel), and Jeff (Michael C. Maronna), a trio of twenty-somethings whose enthusiasm for higher learning is matched only by their enthusiasm for root canals performed without the aid of anesthesia. As such, their entire collegiate existence has been an elaborate series of cons and scams designed to plagiarize essays, skip midterms, and covertly manipulate bell curves. When deranged geek Ethan (Schwartzman) -- who harbors a psychotic fixation for a flaxen-haired co-ed named Angela (James King) -- gets wind of their scheming, he blackmails Dave and the gang into contriving a date between him and his crush. But as Dave cozies up to Angela, he realizes that no amount of scheming can hide the fact that he's the one that's truly in love. Slackers went by a number of working titles while in production at the ill-fated upstart Destination Films; when Destination went belly-up, the film sat on the shelf for over a year before being picked up for release by Sony's Screen Gems division. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide