""My grandma drank all my pot.""
I saw this over a month ago on FX since some of my former high school acquaintences said it was the funniest film of 2006. I'm prone to respectfully disagree. It wasn't funny, or at least not laugh out loud funny, which I think is what a comedy needs to be. If you only find it funny in your head, then the film isn't that great, hence how comedies which are rated the best came from the '70s & '80s when you had all the great comedians still alive physically, and professionally. But nowadays, not so much. And this movie was an example of that sad fact.
The story follows Alex (Allen Covert-Little Nicky/Mr. Deeds/Eight Crazy Nights/50 First Dates/The Longest Yard/I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry/Strange Wilderness), a 35yr old professional video game tester that's evicted from his appartment complex by the landlord (Rob Schneider-The Waterboy/Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo/The Animal/Mr. Deeds/50 First Dates/Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalo/The Longest Yard) cuz of his roomate spending his share of the rent on Phillipino Hookers. When a night at his friend Jeff's house doesn't work out, he's forced to move in with his Grandma Lilly (Doris Roberts-Everybody Loves Raymond {210 episodes: '96-'05}/The Grass Harp/I-See-You.com/Keeping Up With The Steins/Play The Game/Another Harvest Moon/They Came From Upstairs) who's taking up 2 elderly women (Shirley Jones-Manna From Heaven/Raising Genius/Creature of the Sunny Side Up Trailer Park)(Shirley Knight-Locked In/Open Window/Not Fade Away/The Other Side of the Tracks/Paul Blart: Mall Cop) as roomates.
However, Alex is soon subjected to scores of chores and loses time to test out his new game he designed, and the one that J.P. (Joel David Moore-Sledge: The Untold Story/Dodgeball/Wieners/The Tiffany Problem/Avatar) designed. And thus Alex falls behind on his tasks and his life gets a little bit better with a little help from his friends whom are his co-workers Barry (Jonah Hill-Superbad/Just Add Water/Forgetting Sarah Marshall/Funny People/How To Train Your Dragon), Kane (Kelvin Yu-My Prince, My Angel/If I Had Known I Was A Genius/Milk/Star Trek), and Jeff (Nick Swardson-Reno 911!/Reno 911!: Miami/Blades of Glory/I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry/You Don't Mess With The Zohan/The House Bunny/Bolt).
Their boss for their current project which is to perfect J.P.'s game "Eternal Deathslayer 3" is Samantha (Linda Cardellini-LolliLove/Brokeback Mountain/American Gun/The Lazarus Project/ER {113 episodes: '03-'08}) whom he has a crush on. The boss of the company they all work at is Mr. Cheezle (Kevin Nealon-Daddy Day Care/Good Boy!/Remarkable Power/You Don't Mess With The Zohan/Get Smart/They Came From Upstairs) who buys drugs from Alex's stoner friend Dante (Peter Dante-Little Nicky/Mr. Deeds/Stuck On You/50 First Dates/I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry/Strange Wilderness) who's completely wasted all the time and is for some reason rooming with a witch doctor who gets him doing all sorts of crazy shit, including adopting a wild monkey to teach it karate, and getting a lion to defend their house from the cops so they won't find his stash. But it runs rampant in his neighborhood.
Throughout the film, Alex keeps having to find clever ways to get the TV to himself so he can complete his task of making it through the harder levels of J.P.'s game, but the more he tries, the more Lilly, Grace, and Bea get absorbed with it. Just one pot party later and they're living it up in a very non-retired sort of way. But in the meantime, Alex and friends berate J.P. for wearing Matrix like clothing and acting like the greatest geek of all time by talking to himself in weird voices and making random outbursts only a geek would make. And at the same time J.P. tries to win over Samantha himself. And she in the meantime is going out for nights on the town, nerd style with Barry, Jeff, Kane, and Alex. On one said occaision they go to a vegan restaurant where there's a cameo by David Spade (Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol/Coneheads/Tommy Boy/Black Sheep/Lost & Found/Joe Dirt/Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star/The Benchwarmers/I Now Pronounce You Cuch & Larry) as a waiter who only likes Samantha cuz she's polite and the others guys can't stand a thing on the menu, so they go to some burger joint instead. Oh yeah, and Jeff nails Grace in the bedroom in one scene. Not as funny as it was creepy, especially the fact that he likes going along with it. I guess he desperately didn't want to be a virgin forever, cuz that was definitely the direction he was heading (no surprise).
As the movie progresses, it gets slightly predictable, and the main thing that the so called 'villain' (J.P.) will do is expected, and as I said before, there are little to no laughs in the movie. Dante & the witch doctor are the breadwinners of the laugh out loud stuff in the film, and they are scarce. Same goes for Grandma Lilly, Grace, and Bea. They're not as involved in the story as one would expect, given the film's title, but instead, the majority of the movie focuses on Alex, his co-workers, Samantha, and J.P. The mediocre romance between Samantha and the two leading guys (whom are obviously hero and villain) isn't even funny in the slightest, just typical, and stupid for a film that won awards as the best stoner film of 2006 and best pot scene in a movie. Which scene is that you ask? I don't know either, but judging from all the crap that happens in this movie then it shouldn't be to hard to figure out which one it is...I think.
It had stoner movie acting, and I guess visuals were okay, but nothing amazing, since it looks like any average comedy. It could have been improved upon by giving Grandma Lilly and the stoner Dante more screentime and involvement in the story.
Same principals apply to directing. Since the movie wasn't really that funny, but was still okay to watch, then I'd give that an average rating as well.
Overall, this was a forgetful film, definitely not the best from Nicholaus Goosen, (I'd hope--oh wait, wikipedia says this was his first and only movie to date, so nevermind, I guess this is his best). Though it was slightly better than the average comedy, despite that it wasn't very funny. An average film reminiscent of the bad comedies of today for an extra boring night to semi-entertain yourself.
Movie News
1 Comments
2 Comments