Nick Jonas, center, and cast in Goat (The Film Arcade)

Based on the 2004 best-selling memoir by Brad Land, Goat is an account of college fraternity culture and the brutality of its hazing rituals. It opens in the center of a circle of shirtless, roaring young men dubbed over by the sound of ominous, pounding bass. One might compare it to Coppola’s opening for Apocalypse Now. That’s how effective the first few moments are. Starting off with such profound imagery, the filmmakers are saying: Strap yourselves in, this film is going to be something to behold.

But, no, the film doesn’t really live up to that.

We first meet brothers Brad (Ben Schnetzer) and Brett Land (Nick Jonas) at an underage drinking party that is completely off the chain. The bespectacled-and-therefore-sensitive Brad voices concern that the party is getting “too weird.” He leaves while Brett stays behind to score with some girl (possibly two). On his way home from the party, Brad is abducted by two young men who rob him, beat him to a pulp, and leave him for dead in a field. Perhaps too soon after his physical recovery, sensitive Brad decides he is well enough to follow hunky Brett to college, mostly because he feels safe when he’s with his brother.

Brett, it turns out, is a superstar at his fraternity. He has also been affected by Brad’s assault, as he becomes more protective of him. Naturally, Brett gets Brad voted into that year’s incoming pledge class. What follows are party sequences, dramatic tension about Brad learning how to “act his role” and “suck up,” and the inevitable Hell Week, filled with initiations, which is pretty much what anchors this film. Because the movie spends so much of its running time depicting the hazing, what could have been a nuanced story with well-developed characters ends up becoming an R-rated after-school special.

The film’s first act, after Brad’s assault, moves at a contemplative pace. Brad flinches easily to sudden movements and loud noises. The way his brother’s college bros smack each other around starts to take on new meaning. The dialogue, laden with insults and homophobia, is always indicative of male power struggle and the young men’s insecurities. However profound these post-traumatic scenes may appear, once the Land brothers go to college, the film loses any sense of nuance it had, almost as if the filmmakers couldn’t figure out how to marry story A with story B.

The hazing scenes are where the filmmakers made the story their own. The original memoir did not go into this much harrowing detail (perhaps because the author chose not to remember it). The sequence is relentless, not because the tasks the pledges have to undergo are that horrific; the hazing just seems never-ending. (Much of it is filmed in real time—one has to admire the actors for their endurance). By the end, the audience will feel as exhausted as the young men themselves.

But somehow Goat still misses the point. This is one occasion where the filmmakers should have made a push for an NC-17 rating, just so they could take the audience all the way in to depict exactly how barbaric the initiation ritual can be. For instance, when the pledges are told to strip naked, they leave their underwear on. Right there we have to suspend our disbelief; we know we’re in Rated R-Land, not Reality.

Now, to address the elephant: Nick Jonas. He’s never in the moment. Instead, he seems to be very concerned about when he should squint his eyes for em-pha-sis and/or look off into the distance. Perhaps this is why he is often given props to focus his attention on.

For the last few years, Jonas has appeared in the media as James Franco’s Mini-Me. Notice that Jonas’s flirtations with gay media outlets are taken straight out of Franco’s book. All those “is-he-or-isn’t-he” publicity stunts Franco has pulled over the past decade are exactly what Jonas has played for his millennial fan base. It was inevitable these two were going to do a film together, and here it is finally. Franco’s role, not even in the book, seems tacked on just to give this indie a little more star power. During his cameo, you can practically see Franco passing the torch of sexual ambi-flui-guity to young Jonas.

Additionally, fans of Goat the memoir will be disappointed with the filmmaker’s choice to have Ben Schnetzer play Brad as a little more assertive and a lot less awkward than the Brad that narrates the book. There is no doubt Schnetzer could have knocked the role out of the park, had his role been written more like the original character. Here, Brad just moves through the motions. It’s sad because the actor was marvelous in 2014’s Pride.

The real standout is Brad’s roommate, Will, played by Danny Flaherty (MTV’s Skins, The Americans). The dorky and endearing Will is the pledge the fraternity just doesn’t want to let in and who suffers the brunt of the punishments. Out of the whole pledge class, he has to eat the most crap, literally. Will much more resembles the Brad Land from the book, and he is the character this film should be about.

Goat plays out as a Disney-fied social message that leaves aside any larger themes it flirted with in the first act. Because it is meant for a young audience, the film treats the antagonists’ comeuppance as if justice has been served. Yet not one comment is made about how the punishment is just a slap on the wrist or that this sort of thing continues to happen at colleges year after year. (Another recent film, Dear White People, a satire about racial discrimination on college campuses, ended on a slideshow of real-life white fraternity and sorority brothers and sisters dressing up in blackface.) Simply stating the film is based on actual events doesn’t let Goat off the hook. Instead, it comes off as a showcase for this month’s hot new poster boys.