The British Empire's two-century occupation of India is certainly acknowledged, if in a humorous fashion (and at Pipp's expense), while British race and class discrimination is rampant, albeit cartoonish. Penn's Indian ancestry comes into play often, particularly in the setting of upper crust English society. And yet, Nathan and Gallagher, and one supposes Penn as well (who executive-produces as well as stars), manage to dose the picture, as mentioned above, with just the slightest bit of social awareness. It's not as if Mom and Pop are going to be the driving force behind this film's success, or lack thereof, at the box office anyway.
It's the latter task that is perhaps the more difficult and, let's face it, less imperative for the film's producers. More important is the matter of whether or not director Mort Nathan ( Boat Trip) and scripter David Drew Gallagher (this is his first produced credit as a writer) can suitably entertain the young'uns - who are looking for ejaculating dogs and topless sporting events and hot pepper sauce on penises (all of which you do in fact get here) - while also keeping the more adult audience preoccupied. Can he possibly pull this off? Of course he can, and he will, but that was never in question.
She also happens to be Taj's new boss, but his unorthodox teaching method ("We've all seen Dead Poet's Society," Taj knowingly intones at one point) is rattling the campus as much as his attempts to upend the social order of the place are. So the basic structure for a film of this nature is thereby laid out, including a romantic arc for Taj that sees him courting the beautiful girlfriend of Pipp, Charlotte Higginson (an appealing Lauren Cohan), who of course is a sweetheart despite her being involved with the ridiculous and evil Pipp. He becomes the leader of this group of outcasts - which includes a hot cockney student with a foul mouth a drunken, fighting Irishman a geeky Harry Potter reject and a mute videogame savant - and determines to turn them into the new cool kids at school. Forced to leave the Fox and Hounds as a result, before he even got started with them, Taj arrives at what is essentially the Delta House of Camford, the Cock and Bulls. After an interlude on his flight with a sexy blonde Brit that ends badly, and barely humorously, Taj and his sidekick, the aforementioned big-balled dog Balzac, arrive on campus and soon fall prey to a practical joke at the hands of the Fox and Hounds' top man, the Earl of Grey, Pipp Everett (a suitably squirmy Daniel Percival). The film begins with Taj flying to England, where he is taking a job as a teaching assistant at Camford University while also planning to follow in his father's footsteps as a member of the Fox and Hounds, the A-list of fraternities at the stuffy university. And Reynolds' absence is not a concern anyway because Penn competently takes the reigns of the film (despite having to fake an Apu-esque Indian accent throughout), starring as Taj Badalandabad - former personal assistant to Van Wilder and recent graduate of Coolidge College. Interestingly, Penn's star seems to be rising in Hollywood even as Reynolds' might be fading. No, there is not even a cameo for Reynolds here, though his character does get some passing mention from the film's new lead Kal Penn - the Van Wilder prot¿g¿ from the original. himself Ryan Reynolds, is nowhere to be seen. Speaking of would-be Van Wilders, The Rise of Taj itself is technically a wannabe Van Wilder since the original film's star, V.W. Fear not, you aficionados of gigantic canine testicles. College kids the world over are getting ready to click away as they read the above sentence, so let it be said to those horny would-be Van Wilders that yes, a dog with big balls also appears in this film. But in the case of Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj, there's a rub: Along with the standard frat boy elements comes a small attempt at social commentary. Chief among are gross-out humor, sexual innuendo, nudity, and so on. One enters into a film called Van Wilder expecting certain things.
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