Cedar Rapids: Critic Reviews

Within the structure of a conventional, well-built comedy fable about an innocent among bigger-city sophisticates - a screenplay bull's-eye for relative newcomer (and native Wisconsinite) Phil Johnston - is something truly original.

The jokes sing as well as zing.

It's funny, offensive, well acted and pointless.

Cedar Rapids slowly squanders its apparently fruitful set-up, heading towards a weak, sappy ending that tries for sweetness, but leaves a sickly saccharine aftertaste.

This is a Frank Capra-meets-Judd Apatow comedy with a sweetness-laced ribaldry.

Helms's gifts still seem better suited for the small, situation-based set pieces he has done on "The Office" and "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart."

I imagine the director, Miguel Arteta, is the reason the movie succeeds as well as it does. He mutes the obnoxiousness and concentrates on the performances, nearly all of which are excellent and marked by a sense of real camaraderie.

A mild comedy of embarrassment, set in the dark heart of Middle America.

The movie belongs to Helms and Reilly, ringleaders who barely seem to notice that the script from Phil Johnston favors easy jokes and obvious setups. They, and the others, give this minor movie major heart.

The main thing about "Cedar Rapids" is that it makes you laugh-often and out loud.

Like a slightly twisted, modern-day Frank Capra fable...

When this mix of hopeful and edgy works, you get something like "Little Miss Sunshine." And when it doesn't, you get a cocktail with a bad smell, one part sunny to two parts vulgar.

The less uptight... will have an amusing enough time... and some might even be glad that here Arteta's removed enough edge from his man-child hero that there's no chance of any of his quirks resonating in one's head...

It helps that Reilly is the opposite of a slob-comic. With his hangdog melancholy, he makes even the nonstop cunnilingus allusions poignant -- the product of emotional longing.

These folk are undistinguished yet distinctive, and the film, for all the familiar grind of its plotting, pays them their honest due.

The film's director, Miguel Arteta, understands that real laughter grows from characters. He has a rich start with Lippe, played by Helms as a man who is thrilled even to go through security at the airport.

Modest in every way, the screenplay by Phil Johnston is enjoyable in the telling even when the details smack of contrivance.

Screenwriter Phil Johnston gets a surprising amount of comic mileage from the familiar premise of staid Rotary Club types getting crazy in a strange town, and there are some decent laughs from Helms's fellow conventioneers and partners in crime.

Helms delivers a performance of touching delicacy, one almost as remarkable as that of Tom Hanks in Big.

Considering it has to do with infidelity, bribery, drugs, drinking, loutish behavior, fraud and prostitution, Cedar Rapids is really kind of a sweet movie.

A really entertaining effort, aided by some terrific performances.

This crude aping of every hack from Judd Apatow to the Farrelly brothers represents the worst of what is happening in film today...

Helms is at his best when reacting to others, which is one of the reasons he has made such an effective ensemble player in recent years.

These corn-fed Rotarians are such a cuddly bunch, and the movie's barbs are so pudding-soft, that it's not hard to get caught up in all the gee-whizzery.

Cedar Rapids is agreeable, but no wands are waved. And it's amusing, but not knee-slappingly so.