There are a few tried and true staples of the American high school: yellow buses, homecoming, prom, the social safari that is the school cafeteria. And with each micro-generation, raunchy teen movies about trying to get some or remain a loser for life. Incoming, a new Netflix teen film from The Mick creators Dave and John Chernin, is the latest attempt to revive the type of outrageous R-rated comedy that Hollywood now makes in fits and starts. Like last year’s No Hard Feelings, Joy Ride or Bottoms, it’s trying to channel the unfiltered debauchery of American Pie or Superbad, but for kids born after both of those movies premiered. (I’ve realized with horror that fall’s freshmen, born in 2010, are the first of gen alpha to enter high school.)
As in both of those antecedents, Incoming focuses on one pod at the bottom of the food chain: nerdy freshman boys who haven’t grown yet. Benj Nielsen (an endearing Mason Thames) and his friends – Connor (Raphael Alejandro), Eddie (Ramon Reed) and Danah “Koosh” Koushani (Bardia Seiri) – all look like children, in a school populated with boorish proto-men played by actors in their late 20s. The plot in this 91-minute film is admirably slight and brass-tacks: Benj, a former theater kid trying to rebrand, is in love with his older sister Alyssa’s (Ali Gallo) best friend Bailey (Isabella Ferreira), but she’s a sophomore and cool; Koosh needs to prove himself to his older brother Kayvon (Kayvan Shai), a sociopathic senior who regularly beats him up, by hooking up with someone. Kayvon’s blowout party for the first weekend of school offers an ideal opportunity for both schemes, plus plenty of Project X-style hijinks.
