Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Role Models is Hilarious, Fun and Solid

Here is a movie that’s actually a funny comedy, as I write this review I’m actually still laughing.
When we begin the movie we meet Danny (Paul Rudd) and Wheeler (Seann William Scott) who are energy drink salesmen, their product is called Minotaur, which is a parody of Red Bull. They travel school to school and sell it to kids as a way to stay off drugs.
Wheeler, the man who dresses as the Minotaur, loves his job. Danny, his partner, has just celebrated his 10 year anniversary with Minotaur and he hate’s his job and feels he has wasted away years of his life.
Danny’s girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks), who is a lawyer, dumps him because he thinks their relationship is getting close to marriage and this scares her, because he has such a negative outlook on life and she doesn’t want to be a part of that.
This send’s Danny into his own personal hell and when they are making a presentation at a local high school, they’re informed that their truck is being towed. To keep this from happening they both jump into the truck and try to drive away, in hopes that the truck will break loose from the tow truck. Yet, they end up crashing into a statue in front of the school.
They are then arrested for destruction of school property, assault of an officer and a host of other things. They are now faced with a choice, they can go to prison for 30 days or spend 150 hours with Sturdy Wings, which is a big brother type program.
Of course, they choose to join Sturdy Wings, which is led by recovering cocaine addict Gayle Sweeney (Jane Lynch).
Wheeler gets paired with Ronnie Shields (Bobb’e J. Thompson), the funniest and meanest little kid you’ll ever meet. Danny is paired up with Augie Farks (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, aka McLovin) who is shy kid who is obsessed with the live-action medieval game LAIRE (watch the movie to learn more about that).
Once they get paired with their “littles” as Gayle calls them, that’s where the movie really takes off and I found myself laughing through out the majority of this film.
The thing the movie really does well is what Superbad did so well, they have all this raunchy humor right up front and as the movie goes on you’re hit with its heart of gold. See that’s why these sorts of comedies work, because they don’t only have joke after joke with no story, they have a story and it turns out to be a really sweet one.
There is so much good this movie offers that I can’t really get into every single thing, but I’ll mention a few. First, Jane Lynch was funny in “The 40-year Old Virgin”, but she’s hilarious in this movie. Yes, she use to do coke and she doesn’t let you ever forget that, she’s very open about it and extremely open about almost everything else.
Paul Rudd was the perfect person to play a guy who hates life and makes fun of everything. He really does a great job in this role, even though he might be doing the same kind of acting he did in “Knocked Up”. Yet, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
Now the other thing I really liked was Ronnie and Wheeler’s relationship, the scenes where it’s just them are priceless and I’m still laughing thinking about it. I can’t really say too much about it, due to some of the material they talk about, but trust me it’s hilarious.
Ok, so there are a few things that keep this movie from getting a perfect score. First, in some places the movie seems underwritten and it also has lack of original concepts, but that’s all made up by its characters and in the long run it's a solid product. So, if you can over look those minor flaws, then you'll really enjoy it.
All and all do yourself a favor and see this movie, it’s a comedy that’s funny, has likable characters and also has a heart of gold.

B+

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