Grown men say and do the darndest things

Your enjoyment of the new comedy “Old School” may hinge on whether you find the sight of Will Ferrell running down a street in nothing more than black socks and shoes uproariously funny, inexplicably tragic or a little of both. As Frank, a newlywed astray in his early 30s, Ferrell plays the most hapless of three friends who feverishly try to recapture their youth by establishing a fraternity. After Frank’s friend Mitch (Luke Wilson) moves into a house on university grounds, their co-conspirator Beanie (Vince Vaughn) decides they should turn it into a clubhouse for men poised on the razor’s edge between carefree youth and ponderous adulthood. Needless to say, the three lose more than their poise.

“Old School” more or less picks up where director Todd Phillips’ last lollapalooza, “Road Trip,” ended. The story of college buddies on a cross-country sex mission, the earlier comedy played out as yet another iteration of “Animal House,” minus the subversion. Filled with topless girls and Tom Green’s witless mugging, it wasn’t as funny as its progenitor not only because it didn’t share “Animal House’s” radical attitude toward authority, but also because its attitude toward women was distinctly square.

Central to the anarchic spirit of “Animal House” was that no matter how much havoc the guys wrought, the girls never lagged far behind; the two sexes burned down the house together. The movie was National Lampoon without the menace or the politics, but “Road Trip” smelled like a moldering Playboy jokes page.

The jokes are funnier in “Old School” and the comedy more evolved, mostly because the guys are feeling the pain of commitment. Surrounded by women -- those they have and don’t want, those they want and can’t have -- Frank, Mitch and Beanie are hound dogs with a bark that’s invariably worse than their bite. They’re stupid about sex but fools for love, which means they’re also fundamentally decent. Even Beanie is a sheepish dad in wolf’s clothing: He hatches the plan for the fraternity, yet despite his jive about 19-year-old coeds, the character is rarely without a baby strapped to his chest. Wilson has ineffable charm and Ferrell natural comic timing, but Vaughn, whose hangover stare recalls Walter Matthau in the ‘60s comedy “A Guide for the Married Man,” makes the ideal poster boy for the happily whipped.

The disconnect between what men say and what they do makes “Old School” funnier than most of its gags and it also invests the movie with curious pathos. The scenes with Mitch and his estranged girlfriend (a wonderfully kooky Juliette Lewis) have the echo of real life, where comedy is always at its truest, as do the awkward exchanges between Frank and his understandably confused bride (Perry Reeves). Like the rest of the women, Leah Remini, who plays Beanie’s wife, isn’t given enough to do, but the actress does more with a roll of her eyes than Phillips and co-writer Scot Armstrong do with their arsenal of jokes. If they trusted women as much as the Farrellys (“There’s Something About Mary” is also about Mary) or, at least, didn’t feel the need to flex their heterosexual anxiety, “Old School” might be as funny as they think.

As it pans out, Phillips never goes fully for broke and even Ferrell, who gets the benefit of the film’s more robust routines fails to scale the lunatic heights of his “Saturday Night Live” glory. Even so, the comic does succeed in carving a recognizable Everyman from Phillips and Armstrong’s narcoleptic doodling. Stunned by his own life, Frank doesn’t just find it hard to accept that he’s married; he can’t believe he’s a grown-up. Whether sucking beer through a rubber hose or hauling around a blowup doll, he moves through life with the helplessness of the newly born. He’s one of those men who only settled down with one woman because another one booted him out of the womb. It’s no wonder he looks scared -- he can’t find his mommy.

‘Old School’

MPAA rating: R, for strong sexual content, nudity and language.

Times guidelines: A high level of crudeness including language and some nudity.

Luke Wilson...Mitch

Will Ferrell...Frank

Vince Vaughn...Beanie

Jeremy Piven...Pritchard

Ellen Pompeo...Nicole

DreamWorks Pictures presents a Montecito Picture Co., released by DreamWorks. Director Todd Phillips. Writers Todd Phillips, Scot Armstrong. Story Court Crandall, Todd Phillips, Scot Armstrong. Producers Daniel Goldberg, Joe Medjuck, Todd Phillips. Director of photography Mark Irwin. Production designer Clark Hunter. Editor Michael Jablow. Costume designer Nancy Fisher. Music Theodore Shapiro. Casting Joseph Middleton. Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes.

In general release.