Role Models DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

One of my few claims to fame is that I went to high school in the same class as Seann William Scott back in good ol' Minnesota. While he doesn't always pick some of the best projects to star in (See: Mr. Woodc*ck, Dukes of Hazzard), it looks like my classmate is back on track with the uber-hilarious Role Models, easily one of the best comedies of this past year.

I remember hearing people from back home talking about this film and it seemed that there were at least a handful of people who thought or just assumed this was a Judd Apatow film, and, well, I guess I can't really blame them for thinking that. With Apatow veterans Paul Rudd, Jane Lynch, Elizabeth Banks and wunderkind Christopher Mintz-Plasse all appearing here, one surely could confuse this film for one of Apatow's... but nay. This is not a Judd Apatow film, and while I do truly love his work, there is another filmmaker out there that has quite a similar background, and quite similarly hilarious films, but has not quite gotten the recognition that Apatow has, and that is David Wain, who directs this, his third film, and utilizes some of his longtime familiar faces and newcomers in the process, in what turns out to be his most successful film to date.

The film isn't entirely complex in plot, but the attention to detail and the intricacies of the characters, crafted by writer-director Wain and co-writers Ken Marino, Timothy Dowling and actor/writer Paul Rudd, complexify (yeah, I just made that word up... deal) the story with these intriguing characters. The plot is fairly simple. Two dudes who work as reps for an energy drink called Minotaur (hilarity), Wheeler (Seann William Scott), who loves his job, and Danny (Paul Rudd), who's been depressed because of the "rut" he's in with his dead-end job which causes him to be pissed off at everything, get in a spot of trouble after Danny's girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks) dumps him and causes him to create a wreck with their Minotaur-mobile at the school. Beth, a lawyer, tells them they're pretty much screwed and the best she could do was to get them 150 hours of community service at a Big Brothers/Big Sisters-type place called Sturdy Wings. So, in essence, we have the party boy Wheeler and the downtrodden prick Danny thrown into this organization where they have to mentor two young children. Of course, the two young boys their assigned to aren't even close to the pick of the litter. Danny gets Augie Farks (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), an older teen who is deeply into this live-action roleplaying fantasy world that his mother (Kerri Kinney) and stepfather (Ken Marino) desperately want him to break out of. On the other hand, Wheeler gets Ronnie (Bobb'e J. Thompson), an incredibly foul-mouthed young black kid with a propensity for boobies and either pissing people off or getting them in trouble. So, basically, they all learn about each other and themselves and whatnot and so on and so forth... and you'll laugh your balls off along the way.

I honestly can't say enough about the performances here. Paul Rudd, no matter who he's working for, no matter what kind of film it is, constantly and, well, by nature, consistently, delivers amazing performances in everything he takes on, and the trend doesn't stop here. His character does kind of have a similar quality to his David character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin... but this Danny character is much more of a prick. He's constantly whining and trying to belittle people (like a hilarious coffee-house scene early on in the film), bemoaning his boring life and going-nowhere job. Seann William Scott, by nature, really, is a perfect counterpart for this character of Wheeler, the free-spirited, no-strings-attached, fun-loving party dude who has no complaints about dressing up as a Minotaur and prancing around on stage in front of high school kids. Scott is, in some ways, the same kind of character we've grown accustomed to seeing him play, but in many other ways, it's a much more mature character than we've seen him handle with a wonderful little character arc that he fleshes out nicely. Christopher Mintz-Plasse more than proves that his astounding performance in Superbad was surely no fluke, with a terrific performance as the timid teen Augie Farks, who prefers his live-action role-playing world to that of his real life. To be perfectly honest, perhaps the best performance of them all is young Bobb'e J. Thompson as Ronnie, because, wow... I just didn't see that coming. While he's had a spate of credits before this, his performance as Ronnie is truly a breakthrough because he exudes such raw energy and emotion with each line he delivers... in hilarious fashion. The sky's the limit with this kid, I tell you.

One of the only things I didn't like about the movie wasn't necessarily Jane Lynch's performance as the kooky Sturdy Wings leader Gayle... but her character was just pretty annoying. Trust me, Jane Lynch is an incredible actress and she plays this part of the ex-druggie-turned-child-counselor to a T... but it seemed to me that her character was a lot weirder than she really needed to be. There are all sorts of bizarre scenes where we see her trying to rake Danny and Wheeler over the coals, so to speak, in her rather ineffective way, and it's kind of awkward to watch. Yeah, Lynch does play this character wonderfully... but I just don't like the character they created so much. Aside from that, the film is littered with a wealth of terrific smaller performances from the likes of Joe Lo Truglio, as the jolly comrade of Augie in the live-action role-playing world, named Kuzzik, Kerri Kinney and Ken Marino as Augie's bizarre mother and stepfather, Ken Jeong as the prickly King Argotron, Matt Walsh as his right-hand man Davith of Glencracken, A.D. Miles as the super-eager Sturdy Wings veteran Martin and, of course, the fantastic Elizabeth Banks as Danny's girlfriend Beth, who doesn't play an insanely huge part here, but come on. When HASN'T she been just awesome in a film over the last four years or so? Trust me, she's just as awesome here.

This is David Wain's third film, after his career in TV with The State and other shows, and I honestly think he keeps getting better and better. I loved me some Wet Hot American Summer, and while I didn't see The Ten (yet), this whole film is so entrenched in magnificent humor, neither too clean or too dirty, and wonderful, rich characters that drive this story. Wain not only manages to bring in the bountiful amount of laughs here, but also does quite a fine job in the "action" scenes during the live-action role-playing parts of the film. Yes, those scenes aren't a huge part of the film, but it gives the film a much grander sort of scope and it's nice to see a hilarious comedy sort of interwoven with larger-scaled themes like this.

Role Models is not only a raucous comedy about some unconventional role models, but the film itself should also serve as a role model to other comedies as well. It is a comedy, and a damn-fine one, but it's ambitious enough to take you to other semi-dramatic places as well. I'm actually not that surprised that people would've confused this with an Apatow film, because it certainly has all the sort of elements that he's known for... but director David Wainn delivers them with his own distinct style and flair for humor that will surely be a friendly comedic rival to Team Apatow in the years to come.

We get a pretty good selection of features here and they all get started with Deleted Scenes and Alternate Takes. We get 19 of these deleted/alternate scenes and some of this stuff is pretty funny and we get some stuff with the tasty Rashida Jones who's only in one scene and, there is a pretty cool little alternate ending thing that's kind of a spin-off of the ending of Rocky III. While some of this stuff is kind of lame, these 24 minutes of scenes are worth checking out.

Bloopers are next and, naturally, there's some pretty funny stuff here. Sadly it's only about three and a half minutes long, but there's some great material in here.

On the Set of Role Models is next and it's a pretty cool little seven and a half minutes where we hear from most of the people on the film like director David Wain, Ken Marino, Paul Rudd, Seann William Scott, Elizabeth Banks and others and it's a pretty common featurette just talking about the production. We hear some good stuff like how Wain works with his cast and the familiar faces he's worked with for the last 20 years, and the new additions as well. Definitely worth checking out.

Game On: Creating a Role Playing World is next and it delves totally into the live-action roleplaying aspect. They talk about the main LARPing people like Ken Jeong and Joe Lo Trugliio, who play King Argotron and Kuzzick, and we get little bits from the costume department, some of the fight choreography from the guy who worked on the Bourne movies and just what all went in to these crazy scenes. It's another great featurette at just under 10 minutes long.

The last feature we get is In-Character and Off-Script is next and we get three of these that just delve into some of the smaller characters. The first one is a "tribute" video with Sturdy Wings saluting Martin Gary, and it has A.D. Miles as his Gary character just talking about his time at Sturdy Wings. The next one is with the hilarious Joe Lo Trugliio's Kuzzik character and the last one is with Matt Walsh's Davith of Glencracken. These are only a few minutes long apiece, just over eight minutes total, and these are all hilarious, as usual, and a smashing way to bring these features to a close.

The film is presented in the anamorphic widescreen format, in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

The sound is handled through the Dolby Digital 5.1 format.

Not too bad here. The front features Paul Rudd peeing on a wall, Christopher Mintz-Plasse in his battle regalia and Seann William Scott drinking something in a brown paper bag... It also notes that you get both the theatrical version and the unrated version (all three minutes of it) on the disc. The back features a weird critic quote ("Killer funny"?? What does that friggin mean, Peter Travers...), a synopsis, pics of cast members, a nice special features listing and the billing block and tech specs.

Role Models was easily one of the best comedies of 2008. It's audaciously hilarious, surprisingly heartfelt and I'd find it hard to believe if one ISN'T smiling throughout the entire film because it's just a joy to watch.