Tom Green has officially become the 21st-century Pauly Shore. In Stealing Harvard, the wall-eyed prankster, who actually used to be funny on his MTV show, limits his comic contribution here to a pair of gag front teeth while playing an antisocialite who helps a high school bud (Jason Lee, coasting on his slacker-naïf likability) boost $30,000 for his niece's college fund. In an only-in-a-bad-movie coincidence, Lee's fiancée (Leslie Mann) has finally agreed to marry him now that they've saved...you got it, $30,000.
Despite a plethora of talent on both sides of the camera -- screenwriter Peter Tolan (''Analyze This''), director Bruce McCulloch (''The Kids in the Hall''), and an ensemble that includes Emmy winners Megan Mullally (''Will & Grace'') and Tammy Blanchard (''Life With Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows'') -- the timing in nearly every scene seems a half beat off. Only ''Scrubs''' John C. McGinley energizes the proceedings as a Kojak-like cop with unorthodox hygiene habits. It doesn't help that most of the jokes (like a rip-off of ''There's Something About Mary'''s dog-in-the-crotch bit) are themselves stolen.


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