The R-rated comedy was gone for a little while, but it is back in force now. Thanks go to the makers of “Old School,” “Wedding Crashers” and “The 40 Year Old Virgin” for bringing back comedies that don’t have to aim at a broad base of ages and tastes.

What does an R rated comedy have that say a PG or PG-13 comedy doesn’t? The answer is simply, more. An R rated comedy is more over the top, with more things of an adult nature, be they themes or visuals or juicy bits of dialogue. These little extras may not make a movie better in the long run, but they typically don’t hurt either.

But I digress.

“Beerfest” is an R-rated movie and there is little doubt about what the audience is in for after the first 10 minutes. The film gives the viewer a dizzying spectacle, much like a beer company’s Super Bowl commercial on steroids. Unfortunately, things slow down a bit afterwards and it takes a while to build the momentum back up.

You don’t really need to know the plot of this film, because you can probably guess it, but here it is anyway.

The German grandfather of two brothers dies and he wishes to have his ashes brought to a special place in Germany in October. The brothers bring the ashes to Germany and then find out that he wants his urn to be placed in the immortal halls of Beerfest, a place where an annual underground, international beer-drinking competition is held. Unfortunately, the Germans feel that their grandfather stole a recipe from them, and after embarrassing the brothers they banish them from the games. The men vow to return next year with a team representing the U.S. so that they can avenge their embarrassment and pay tribute to their grandfather. What follows is the assembling of a rag-tag team, training for the event and then, obviously, winning it all.

“Beerfest,” which was written by the comedy troupe Broken Lizard, has a lot of solid laughs and the crew did a good job of creating some interesting characters. Unfortunately, the two brothers are not very interesting and the film sort of suffers because of it. While Barry, the drinking games pro who has fallen on hard times, Landfill, the competitive eating champion, and Fink, the scientist, all give the movie some wonderful comedic sparks, the Wolfhouse brothers are a little flat. Rounding out the cast are some decent performances from Cloris Leachman and Jurgen Prochnow (with a stellar spoof of “Das Boot” included).

There is a good time to be had at “Beerfest” and it will absolutely become a favorite of many when it hits DVD. The problem with the film, at least in my mind, is that it can’t live up to Broken Lizard’s first big release, “Super Troopers.” That film was well-balanced throughout and every character, even the minor roles of the hated Spurbury Police, brought something unique to the table. After three major releases, I have begun to look at the Broken Lizard films like the albums of Pearl Jam. There is a lot to like in the Pearl Jam catalogue and each album has at least a few good songs, but in the minds of many fans, they can’t top their first album, “Ten.” The other thing to consider is that Pearl Jam doesn’t care about topping that first album, they just want to make music and Broken Lizard just wants to make funny movies. They may not be able to capture lightning in a bottle again, but they are doing good, if not great, work. “Beerfest” is a vast improvement over “Club Dread,” and fans of comedy, who don’t have gentle sensibilities, are sure to enjoy this film.

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