Role Models and Pineapple Express, both from 2008, both 3 Stars, both available in "Unrated" DVD editions.
In the life of a film critic, there occasionally arises a kind of inner conflict between the entertainment lover and the film snob within. Sometimes a film is so entertaining that the snob approves; sometimes a film is so unpleasant that both sides disagree. But occasionally, for healthy, well-rounded critics LIKE MYSELF, a movie comes around that is really enjoyable without actually reaching the filmic level of "good."
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you two such movies.
These pictures, Role Models and Pineapple Express bear nothing in common other than the trait just mentioned and the one I brought up in the title of this post. They're both about pairs of total douchebags who are sort of friends as the films start and best friends when they end. How two movies with such a core value in common could be so vastly different is, I suppose, a testament to the power of human storytelling.
One difference between the two is what they appeared to be aiming for. The former was your traditional, hard-cracking buddy comedy, gunning for laughs and sometimes winning them. The latter film aimed for nothing higher than the designation of "stoner comedy," and, á la Cheech and Chong, threw in some raucous action, blood, and gunfights. It aimed low, and it hit the mark. But where Role Models seemed to be trying too hard to make us laugh with old antics like crude sex jokes, naked body parts, and kids saying "boobies," Pineapple Express suffered a bit from its own laziness. Perhaps that could be considered a virtue for a movie about potheads, but I couldn't help but imagine entire sections of the script reading "The two run around screaming. Continue until everyone has forgotten why they are doing so, which is, in fact, for no reason at all."
Then we have the characters. I waxed poetic in a recent post about how lovable Paul Rudd makes every character, but even I had trouble liking Danny, the total jerk he plays for the first half of
Role Models. Down on his luck and fed up with the world, this guy actually had me wishing that Seann William Scott had more lines. And that's saying something. Luckily, things picked up when the kids were introduced. The true stars of the film, Christopher Mintz-Plasse (the infamous "McLovin" from
Superbad) and Bobb'e J. Thompson (see him slay as Tracy, Jr. on
30 Rock) make their characters so fantastically comical that it only emphasizes what jerks their older counterparts are playing.
On the flip side of character issues, we have team Rogan-Franco smoking their way through Pineapple Express. While Seth Rogan's character, Dale, is definitely a loser, it's at least possible to relate to him – he's not a total asshole, he just lacks ambition. Then there's James Franco, who conjures up one of the most amazing stoner-pot dealers cinema has ever seen in Seth, who spends the entire movie in his pajamas. Here is a character that couldn't be more of a loser, and yet he's all the more likable for his occasionally-enlightened confusion. These aren't just any two stoners; they're made unique by their quirks and some spirited acting. Yet again, Pineapple Express manages to meet and exceed its clearly low goals.
So, if one film aimed high and faltered, while the other aimed low and succeeded, doesn't it follow that the two should even out? And so we have two enjoyably average comedies. God Bless America.
