Genre: Comedy
Director: David Wain
Starring: Paul Rudd, Sean William Scott, Christopher Minzt-Plasse, Bobb’e J. Thompson, Jayne Lynch, Elizabeth Banks
Time: 100 minutes (plus trailers)
The last four films I have seen theatrically are Waltz With Bashir, The Wrestler, Doubt and It’s A Free World, and while all of them were really great, as is usually the case with the Oscar contenders we see released this time of the year, they were all of them soul destroyingly bleak. This constant barrage of marginalized immigrants, bloodthirsty soldiers and child molesting priests has wreaked havoc on my usually impenetrable optimism and love for my fellow man. So on my way to see Role Models, the latest in the recent tidal wave of raunchy adult comedies inspired by the success of Judd Apatows 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, I was looking forward to it a lot more than you might expect. I hadn’t been to see a straight up comedy since early November (unless you count the unintentional comedy of The Day The Earth Stood Still) and so while Role Models didn’t have the breathtaking cinematography of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or acting on par with Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, it did have plenty of laughs, which is just what I needed. I will admit that I am a little late to the party on the resurgence of the “dirty mouth big heart” genre of comedies; I haven’t seen 40 Year Old Virgin or Superbad (although that doesn’t stop me from referring to my lanking, bespectacled friend as ‘McLovin’.) And speaking of McLovin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays a particularly amusing character in this film. But I’ll get to that later (I just thought that was an awesome segue.)
The film stars Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott (two of comedies go to guys) as Danny and Wheeler, two dudes in their thirties with nothing to show for their lives except a humiliating job advertising energy drink to high school students. When they crash their promotional truck into a statue, they are forced to log 150 hours of community service or face thirty days in prison. The two are signed up by the judge at Sturdy Wings, an organisation that places troubled children (“littles”) with adult friends (“bigs”) in order to help them develop social skills. Danny is paired with Augie (Minzt-Plasse), a dorky teenager obsessed with live action role playing (dressing up as elves and dwarves and beating people up with rubber weapons), and Wheeler is paired with Ronnie (played by African American child actor with the very confusing name of Bobb’e J. Thompson) who despite being only eight years old has what some (not me) might call an unhealthy obsessions with female bosoms.
This film by no means reinvents the comedic wheel. None of the characters are particularly deep or original; Danny is the guy who gets dumped by his girlfriend and wonders what happened to his life, whereas Wheeler is perfectly happy living in squalor and going from one-night stands to one-night stand. Additionally, we get the nerdy teenager with thick glasses with the hopeless crush on the geeky yet pretty girl, and the profanity spouting car stealing African American child. These characters are undoubtedly stereotypes, but I guess the reason that we see them appearing in movies time and time again is because they are usually pretty funny. Sometimes the comedy misses its mark; the head of Sturdy Wings didn’t take long to stop being amusing and start being irritating, and hearing a small child say boobies begins to loose its charm after about an hour. Still, the interactions between the four main characters were great, the way in which L.A.I.R.E (Live Action Interactive Role-playing Explorers) is depicted is hilarious without being too belittling, and the final ‘battle’ sequence is…epic. Of course, the film has the obligiatory romance B-story, and can’t help but teach us the normal lessons about believing in yourself and so on, but thankfully it’s done in a way that is both funny and touching, and is not overly sappy. Role Models will not be remembered as one of cinemas greatest comedies, but it’s still a good fun watch.
Role Models is playing in cinemas now
