Van Wilder

Van Wilder (Ryan Reynolds) is an outgoing, friendly, and extremely popular student who has been at Coolidge College for seven years. For the past six years he has made no effort to graduate, instead spending his time organizing parties and fundraisers, doing charity work, helping other students, and posing for figure drawing classes. But after seven years, with no return on his investment, Van's father decides it is time to cut his losses and stops paying Van's tuition. Meanwhile Gwen Pearson (Tara Reid), a star reporter for the student newspaper, is asked to do an article on Van. It proves to be so popular that she is asked to write a follow-up article for the front page of the graduation issue. Although that would be a big win, she is rather put off when Van interprets her attempts to schedule interviews as romantic advances — especially because she already has a boyfriend: Gwen's boyfriend, Richard Bagg (Daniel Cosgrove), happens to be the president of the student union and the leader of a fraternity. He takes personal offense at Wilder's attempts to steal his girlfriend, and becomes very stressed out at having to deal with this burden on top of preparing for medical school and leading the Delta Iota Kappa (DIK) fraternity. Subsequently, a rivalry develops between the two men. The rivalry grows as they perform increasingly disgusting pranks on each other. For instance, one scene involves Richard inviting Van over to a dinner with him and Gwen's family to prove a point about Van's lackadaisical attitude towards life (in which Gwen's parents are only pleased by Van's easy-going attitude, and Gwen, increasingly turned off by Richard's stress, only feels that Richard's actions were too under-handed.) In one infamous scene, Van and his friends replace the cream inside some pastries with dog semen and send them to Richard's fraternity, where the frat brothers begin eating and don't realize what it really is until it's too late. At one point, Richard also sleeps with another woman from a sister sorority, which would be the final straw for Gwen later on. Richard also sets up Van at one of his own parties in which there are some (very) underage drinkers and reports it to the police, which leads to Van almost being expelled. However, Van proposes an alternative punishment: that the school force him to complete a semester's worth of work in the six days remaining, and then graduate. The committee agrees to this by a three-to-two decision. Gwen is impressed that Van is taking the initiative to get his life together. She then learns of Richard's setting up of Van, as well as his infidelity, and decides to take retribution. On the morning of Richard's interview with Northwestern Medical School, Gwen laces his ritualistic protein shake with a powerful laxative. Since there are no bathroom breaks allowed during the test, Richard has to hurry through the 2-hour exam in 20 minutes, "dialing down the middle" towards the end and disgusting the other test-takers with flatulence. Afterwards, before he can reach the bathroom, he unexpectedly runs into the medical school interview committee. They pull him into an office to begin the interview, and Richard ends up defecating into a trash can right in front of them. He is briefly seen again in the film, reading Gwen's article in the school paper in the bathroom (presumably, his medical school dreams are ruined, as he mentions to Van in a deleted scene). Meanwhile, Van does well on his finals and celebrates his graduation with Gwen. A side story of the film depicts the saga of Taj Mahal Badalandabad (Kal Penn), an Indian foreign exchange student who is accepted (out of many "talented" applicants) to be Van's personal assistant. The main reason for his application for this position, Taj explains, is he wants to have sex with an American girl before he goes home. He meets a girl named Naomi, and Van pushes Taj to go for her ("Naomi- that's 'I moan' backwards," Van explains) but Taj accidentally sets himself on fire with massage oil. At the end of the movie, Taj meets another Indian girl, and it seems like they are going to hit it off.