Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
11/14/08
“Loser.” It is perhaps
the most cutting and vicious insult known to man, bringing to mind an entire
world full of people living up to their potential lined up, pointing and
laughing at you. Never mind that basically everyone fits someone's
definition of the word: we are all heavily invested, whether we want
to admit it or not, in the notion that life is a game and the suspicion
that we're losing. Oh, sure, we could look at the glass as half-full
and focus on the fact that each of us has found something in our lives
that brings us joy, whether it meets with society's approval or not.
But that kind of sentiment just seems so... losery. Hurray, then,
to the minds (and they are many) behind the new comedy Role Models,
a cheerfully vulgar, hilariously cynical tale that manges the near-impossible.
It makes being yourself, no matter how much of a loser you might seem to
be, seem positively cool.
For Danny Donahue (Paul Rudd),
life is a dead-end street. Every one of life's little annoyances
drives him crazier than the last, and the tenth anniversary of his job
pitching “say no to drugs, say yes to Minotaur Energy Drink” to high schoolers
fills him with despair for his unrealized potential. His partner,
the Minotaur mascot Wheeler (Seann William Scott) throws him a surprise
party, but not even the presence of his girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks)
can brighten Danny's day. In fact, his depression is so outrageous
it enrages Beth, to which he has the worst possible answer: asking
her to marry him. Instantly dumped, he goes back out on the job and
proceeds to commit about a dozen crimes in a whirlwind of acting out, all
with “accessory” Wheeler sitting next to him in their Minotaur truck.
Beth is a lawyer, and manages to get them a deal: 30 days in jail
or community service as part of the Sturdy Wings mentoring program run
by former drug addict Gayle Sweeny (Jane Lynch). Gayle, who seems
to be about 60% inspirational and 40% fried by years of cocaine for breakfast,
lunch and dinner, matches them up with their new charges. Danny
gets Augie Farks (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), whose parents fear he'll never
stop hanging out with his buddies from L.A.I.R. (Live Action Interactive
Roleplaying: basically a full-contact Renaissance Fair) and start
hanging out with girls. Wheeler gets Ronnie (Bobb'e J. Thompson),
a little acting-out machine with the Mother of All Pottymouths. Can
these two shiftless guys survive 30 days as “Bigs” to these messed-up kids?
Methinks there's some life lessons to be learned on the battlefield of
L.A.I.R..
First, and most importantly,
Role Models is flat-out hilarious. Danny is a gloriously soulless
and bitter creation, and Rudd wonderfully endures all the irritations of
day-to-day life, caught between blowing his stack and not giving a crap
(“It's not you, I just don't like having dinner with people.”) His
wordplay with the other characters he can only barely stand is a hoot.
Wheeler is a Scott special, the cheerful idiot who doesn't know any better,
and their hot and cold interaction is lots of fun. Ronnie lines up
one shocking “kids say the most obscene things” moment after another, and
Thompson is up to the challenge, all the more impressive since he makes
his inevitable soft side seem organic and not a product of a screenplay
that remembered the formula it was supposed to be running a little late.
Mintz-Plasse gets a few big laughs (including my favorite in the movie,
during his climactic battlefield speech), but the bulk of the L.A.I.R.
jokes focus on his arch-nemesis, King Argotron (Ken Jeong). The Absolute
Ruler of L.A.I.R. holds court at a local burger joint before each battle
and demands that all other players bow and grovel before his every whim.
Jeong finds the perfect note for the character, coming across as a buck-ninety-eight
John Lone. Funniest of all is Lynch, who's “addicted to helping”
with the same fervor with which she used to be addicted to, you know, and
seemingly a few fingers short of a helping hand, if you know what I mean...
Despite the presence of a
few of Judd Apatow's favorite stock players, the movie's brand of R-rated
comedy is a tad retro (in a good way), based almost entirely on foul language
and non-full-frontal nudity, and it's also telling a genuinely funny
story. This is never truer than at the end, when the final third
of the movie's 90-minute running time is devoted to an epic L.A.I.R. battle
that pits our heroes against all the combined Nations of their fantasy
realm. It's a truly awesome setpiece, laid out and choreographed
just like a Lord of the Rings extravaganza, just one where everyone
made their own costume and the “dead” get up after being mortally touched
by a foam weapon and stand off to the side watching the rest of the battle
play out. The juxtaposition of epic courage and friendship played
out with fake weapons and cardboard castles is both hilarious and sublime,
and one of my favorite parts of any movie this year.
This works all the better
because Role Models has more than enough heart to go with its' laughs.
Rudd manages to keep Danny just this side of hateful, so we always stick
with him. And this detached, world-weary guy is really the perfect
“big” for Augie, since L.A.I.R. doesn't seem any more bizarre or pathetic
to him than every single other thing in his life. Mintz-Plasse nails
the desperation of the “weird” kid stuck under the glare of his parents'
expectations that he just stop being so weird, and there's a truly remarkable
scene where Danny eats dinner at the Farks house and sees firsthand just
how hellish it really is that puts a whole new spin on their interaction.
Ronnie's problems are a little more conventional, but I really liked how
Wheeler bonds with him by living the adult life that a “boobie”-obsessed
little kid would dream of. His speech explaining why KISS are his
heroes is an R-rated classic, and difficult to argue against logically.
The way the threads of all four characters are pulled together when they
create their own “nation” for the climactic battle are really nifty.
And if it's easy to see why Beth (Banks, as always, is delightful) has
wised up and dumped Danny, it's just as easy to see in the final scenes
why she would want to reconsider.
The screenplay's by pretty
much everybody in the Writer's Guild (even Rudd, who's making his feature
writing debut) but it holds together so well you'd never notice, and director
David Wain (whose 2001 spoof of 80's teen sex comedies Wet Hot American
Summer has quietly attracted a fervent cult) does a great job of getting
loads of laughs without ever compromising his characters for them.
In the end, there's even a great, logical explanation for why the Judge
on Danny and Wheeler's case sends people to the clearly unhinged Gayle
to do their community service time (hint: it involves cocaine).
The self-esteem message of the story plays in an interesting way because
there's something about us that tends to resist pure sweetness and light,
but revels in these ideals when they're wrapped in a package as tart as
it is sweet.
Role Models takes
its' time getting rolling, but it just keeps getting better as it goes
because the characters are as solid as you'll ever see in a movie this
funny. It's got it all: underdog heroes, an evil king, epic
battle scenes, true love triumphant, a monster truck with minotaur horns
and a detailed explanation about what part of his anatomy Paul Stanley
is singing about in “Love Gun”. And in the middle of all that, it
finds time to make self-esteem cool: losers of the world unite! |
