We're the Millers - 2013

"We're the Millers" - 2013
Dir. by Rawson Marshall Thurber - 1 hr. 50 min.

Official Red Band Trailer #2

by Clayton Hollifield

Sometimes, all I want is a dirty comedy that's halfway as funny as the concept initially sounds, to blow a couple of hours laughing, to distract me from whatever I need distracting from.  "We're the Millers" is a movie that I had intended to catch in the theatres when it came around, it seemed like a good bet to deliver what I wanted out of it.  Both Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis have been good in these kinds of movies (like "Horrible Bosses," for instance), and the idea of a bunch of scumbags dressing up like dorks to pull off some serious felonious crime is solid enough.  I mean, you know that main characters are scumbags, and no matter how hard they try, they're not going to be able to completely fly under the radar.

David (Jason Sudeikis) is a low-level pot dealer in Denver, but a neighbor, Kenny (Will Pouter), decides to play hero for a street girl, Casey (Emma Roberts), which ends up with David getting beaten up and robbed of his supply and a significant amount of cash.  This leaves David with a problem: a lot of that money belonged to his boss, Brad (Ed Helms).  Brad proposes a solution; David can go down to Mexico and bring back a smidge and an a half of pot across the border.  For that, Brad will forgive the debt, plus pay David $100k.  David isn't down with that idea, but doesn't have a choice in the matter.  His plan, pretend to be a family of dorks on vacation in an RV, which will surely fly under everyone's radar.  David wrangles Casey and Kenny in on the plan, and has to convince a stripper that lives in his apartment building, Rose (Jennifer Aniston), to play his wife and take a little trip down to Mexico.

First up, the R-rating for "We're the Millers" is mostly due to language, and probably because there's a lot of drugs around in the movie (although no one seems to ever smoke any of mountains of weed that are laying around).  If you were hoping that it meant you were going to get to see Jennifer Aniston and her friends, you're out of luck (although she does have a nice strip-tease scene).  It's important to set your expectations at the right level.  This isn't really a gross-out comedy (like a Farrelly Bros movie), and there's not really any kind of hedonism on display, aside from a couple of scenes with another couple, played by Nick Offerman and Kathryn Hahn, which are funny mostly because of their tameness.  Much of the humor comes from how naturally the characters fall into their roles, as if the notion of an average American family is imprinted upon everyone, and slips on like a comfortable sweatshirt.  And there's a lot of sotto voce swearing, of course.

Really, the reason why this movie is pretty watchable and pretty funny is because there's a built-in structure (the need to move the RV from one place to another in an certain amount of time), and because the actors are good, and appropriate for their respective roles, and there's enough difference between them to allow for some natural friction.  And the actors involved generally do a good job.  There's a level of perverse fun in watching Jennifer Aniston be dirty after like a decade in sit-com land (and at an omnipresent amount of fame, as well) - there's a fantastic gag-reel bit in the credits involving the "Friends" theme song that had me laughing as hard as anything else in the movie.  Sudeikis probably isn't an asshole in real life, but he plays one well.  Nick Offerman and Kathryn Hahn are really good as the over-sharing couple that David and Rose can't seem to get away from.

Frequently, when I see a trailer for a comedy that seems like it's going to be okay, I end up being underwhelmed by the finished product.  The batting average seems even lower when we're talking about R-rated comedies.  Maybe people think that some swearing and maybe a flash of flesh is enough to justify $10 at the box office, but I don't usually leave the theatre feeling that way.  "We're the Millers" isn't a world-changing, all-time-great comedy, but it's at least as good as I thought it was going to be, and that's a victory in itself.

3 / 5 - TV (HD)

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy - 2011

"A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" - 2011
Dir. by Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck - 1 hr. 35 min.

Official Red Band Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

This is one of those movies that I had intended to catch at the three-dollar theatre, but it was there and gone in a week.  So I threw it on my Netflix queue, and was disappointed to see that there wasn't even a Blu-Ray version available (I guess they never released this film in that format, which I didn't think happened to actual theatrical releases these days).  But a month or so later, the HD version popped up on streaming, and I was saved from having to watch "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" in (blech!) standard def.  Thank goodness!

Eric (Jason Sudeikis) and his thirty-ish friends seem to have passed their twenties by throwing epic parties at his dad's summer house (Don Johnson, but he's only around for one scene).  However, his playboy dad (I guess that's the right way to put it, he's got a much younger girl with him) has decided to sell the house, which leaves Eric with no playground.  So, in honor of the end of an era, Eric has to come up with the perfect theme for their last party there, on Labor Day weekend.  Eventually, he and his best friend, Mike (Tyler Labine) settle on the idea of an orgy amongst the inner circle of friends.  Some of the people need some convincing, but eventually everyone is down with the idea.

This isn't built to be a classic, five-star comedy.  It's a good basis for a funny R-rated comedy (and unrated home video release), and if you're down with the cast, you're going to have a good time.  My main problem was that it took me a little while to buy the chemistry between the crew (which also included Leslie Bibb, Lake Bell, Nick Kroll from "The League," Michelle Borth, Angela Sarafyan, and Martin Starr), but once I got used to the idea of this as a batch of long-time friends, the movie went a lot more smoothly.  It would be weird not to mention that while all the women in the film were absolutely smoking hot (seriously, take your pick, they all did their pilates to get ready for this movie), the guys were more comedically-built (and Labine was naked more than any other actor in the film).  I don't exactly have a problem with that; the women held their own in terms of comedy, and it's a completely different film to have the guys all ripped and cracking jokes (a little more, shall we say, bro-tastic.  Fraternity-sympathetic, in other words), and as a male viewer, that totally worked in my favor.  But ladies might be a little disappointed if they're hoping for equal quality eye-candy.

But this is a pretty funny movie, especially if you're in the mood for something like "Hall Pass" or "Horrible Bosses."  There are a few laugh-out loud scenes (particularly David Koechner's scene, playing Labine's uncle), and enough adult-oriented (read: dildos) stuff to back up the title.  The progression of events in the film and the inevitable wrinkle in the plot works and feels true; it may be a comedy, but it's not a complete caricature.  "A Good Old-Fashioned Orgy" is what it promises to be, and it goes by painlessly and quickly.  You should know if this sort of thing is up your alley or not.  I enjoyed a raunchy comedy from time to time, and I'm glad I finally got to see it (and not in yucky standard definition, either).

2.5 / 5 - Streaming

The Campaign - 2012

"The Campaign" - 2012
Dir. by Jay Roach - 1 hr. 25 min.

Official Trailer #1

by Clayton Hollifield

I was sold on "The Campaign" from the first time I saw the trailer, and watched Will Ferrell's character punch a baby.  But from that, I know that pretty much the worst thing I can do to a comedy is to get overly excited about it going in.  Anticipation is always a killer, and I always leave a little underwhelmed in situations like that.  Either this film was extra funny, or I had managed to temper my expectations going in; either way, I laughed my way all the way through.

Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) is a Senator from North Carolina who has won four consecutive terms, largely because he's been running unopposed the whole time.  When his popularity dips over a saucy phone call directed to a wrong number, the Motch brothers (John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd) decide to fund an opponent, one that will go along with their plan to open legal sweatshops in America.  They settle on the son of one of their friends, Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis).  He's an unlikely candidate, to say the least, but Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott) shows up to mold Marty's campaign into one that doesn't suck.  From this point, the campaign is on, with all the dirty tricks and underhanded tactics you'd expect (and some that you might not).

One great thing: "The Campaign" steers clear of actual politics, in the sense that this is not a film about how to create jobs or how to fund health care.  It's a film about two buffoons being manipulated, and really, about how the entire political system is being manipulated.  In the context of this film, Brady and Huggins' political party affiliations are essentially interchangeable, which is a statement of it's own.  So whether you're an elephant or a donkey, rest assured that you're not going to sit through an hour and a half of the same slowly deflating gasbags that you could catch on any cable news channel.

Another big positive: there are at least really great, memorable comedy scenes here.  No spoilers here, but the first involves Huggins trying to find out if his family has any skeletons in their closet that he'll need to work around.  The second is a COPS-esque scene, and the third involves one of the candidates seeking a very personal form of revenge on his opponent.  There's more funny material than that, but having a number of "big" comedy scenes always helps.  Will Ferrell is great here, his character is sort of like what would happen if Ricky Bobby had gone into politics once he'd finished racing; his character even drives a car that's completely decorated as a campaign ad.  Zach Galifianakis is also really funny, rather than sticking with the prissy sort of character he played in "Due Date," his Marty Huggins evolves over the course of the film from that starting point.

At this point, it's probably a more relevant point to say that the entire political system is busted than it is to single anyone out for their actions (which is the main point of "The Campaign").  You can punish a blade of grass, but if the entire forest is messed up, doing that is nothing more than actively pursuing distraction from the real problems that need to be addressed.  Thankfully, the antics of these two characters are entertaining, but that's the sugar that helps the real medicine go down.  But more importantly than any particular point, "The Campaign" is a funny movie, and I think it's one I'm not going to have any problem watching more than once.

3.5 / 5 - Theatre

Horrible Bosses - 2011

"Horrible Bosses" - 2011
Dir. by Seth Gordon - 1 hr. 38 min.

Red Band Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

This is the second film I've seen where Kevin Spacey plays a boss who terrorizes his underlings to the point of physical retribution (the first being "Swimming With Sharks").  Sure, that other movie was nearly 20 years ago, but Spacey's so good at being an overbearing boss that I look forward to another one of these kinds of movies in another 20 years or so.  I'm not sure which approach I prefer, though.

In contrast to "Swimming With Sharks," a darkly humorous indie film, "Horrible Bosses" has three buddies who all hate their bosses (and not without good reason), and end up talking themselves into killing the bosses to escape their shared, separate unbearable situations.  Kevin Spacey plays Jason Bateman's boss, who has been dangling a promotion in front of him in order to extract ridiculous hours and performance out of him.  Colin Farrell plays Jason Sudeikis' boss, a cokehead fuck-up who inherits a chemical company and a disdain for his father's ethics.  And Jennifer Aniston plays a sexually aggressive dentist who keeps harassing the freshly engaged (and also registered sex offender) Charlie Day.

The most obvious movie to compare this to is "Office Space," in the sense that it shows people who are completely unequipped to pull off major crime bumbling through the process.  And while the characters' intense frustration with their work situations is the basis of what comes, the point of the movie is showing these three guys (Bateman, Sudeikis, and Day) interacting and screwing things up.  After watching years of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," it's kind of strange watching Charlie Day try to act in a morally positive manner, but not to fear, he still has plenty of opportunities to show off his manic persona.  In an early scene, the three men break into Farrell's apartment to do some "recon," which ends up with Day and Bateman accidentally ingesting some cocaine.  Boom, Day is wound up like a watch.

Yes, killing your boss for personal gain is a dark plot, but considering that there are predecessor movies with this same idea, I can't hold that against "Horrible Bosses."  Besides, the bosses are caricatures, there's little attempt to paint them as anything more than monsters who have earned their fate.  But the biggest positive to the movie is that it's funny.  The characters work well (the bumbling criminals idea is built to last), and the smaller cameo roles are pretty good, too (especially Jamie Foxx, playing a "murder consultant" named Motherfucker Jones, which gets funnier every time it rolls off of someone's tongue").  I was actually laughing out loud, not just chuckling, and that's not too shabby.

3 / 5 - Theatre

Hall Pass - 2011

"Hall Pass" - 2011
Dir. by the Farrelly Brothers - 1 hr. 45 min.

I did a little research, and saw that this was the first Farrelly Brothers movie I've seen in literally a decade (the last one I'd watched was 2001's "Shallow Hal").  Comedy movies go through phases, where one guy or one crew of guys dominate for a period of time.  The Farrelly brothers had that distinction for the mid- to late-90's ("Dumb and Dumber," "Kingpin," and "There's Something About Mary" are about as tight of a three-film run in comedy that I can remember), but they've been eclipsed by the Apatow explosion since then.

What I liked about this movie:  the Farrelly brothers still know how to build a humor scene up, and then keep pushing things until it's a classic.  There's an early scene that involves stars Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis being watched on security cameras that is hilarious, a golf course sequence, and a later scene involving a stalker-ish character that works really well, too.  And the actors in this film do a good job of taking the rest of the material and keeping it afloat, even if the material isn't up to those three sequences.  I think that it might have been a more interesting movie if it had flipped the focus to Christina Applegate and Jenna Fischer's characters over Wilson and Sudeikis', though.  I know that there are rarely female buddy movies, but those two could not only pull it off, but stand a good chance of making it awesome as well.

Nitpicking:  Wilson and Sudeikis have a posse for about half of the movie, and then when they say they're going home because they're bored, they completely disappear.  And I mean gone - none of them show up again.  That's okay, aside from the golf scene, they're not nearly as funny as Wilson and Sudeikis.  My other problem is that I often intensely dislike films that glorify marriage and family.  It's tough to pull off without being saccharine or just plain stupid, and I know that embracing the opposite would be veering into Jody Hill/Danny McBride territory.  I guess this film pulled it off as well as it could, but there was never much doubt as to how the various characters' situations would play out.

Criticism always sounds harsher than praise, and I did enjoy "Hall Pass."  It fits in well with the Farrelly Brothers' post-"Mary" work, which you'd have to decide for yourself how much praise that is.

2.5 / 5 - Theatre