Danny (Paul Rudd) hates life. Wheeler (Sean William Scott) loves it. Danny hates his job and is an asshole to everyone. Wheeler loves his job and...is an asshole to everyone. These two superstars are the center of the latest David Wain (The Ten, Wet Hot American Summer) directed comedy, Role Models.
Danny and Wheeler are reps for Minotaur, an energy drink company where their jobs are to basically go around, drink a ton of Minotaur, and tell kids to keep off the drugs. Sounds simple right? Well, catch these guys over-juiced and on a bad day, and you might find their Minotaur truck on the wrong end of your horse statue. There's no cleverness at play here, these two literally crash their truck into a bronze equine sculpture outside of a school. Danny's girlfriend saves the day and helps them avoid prison time by getting them community service enrolled in a big/little brother program.
The movie may seem like it's setting itself up for a run-of-the-mill, been there/done that kind of story, and guess what? It basically is, except what this film lacks in storytelling creativity, it makes up for with heaping piles of laughs. Scott and Rudd play our two leads with improvisational joy and enthusiasm. Supporting player Jane Lynch throws us her usual curve ball of a wholesome and good woman peppered with a dark and seedy past involving cocaine and body sales. And our two lil's Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Bobb'e Thompson deliver all the humor they promised us from the trailer. David Wain has branched out into mainstream filmmaking by making a significantly less wacky film story-wise, but keeping most of his particular brand of humor intact.
Now I don't want to seem too praising of the picture, because it does suffer its slow parts, and not all the jokes hit the nail on the head. The story is very paint by numbers, but after you get past that, you don't care much and you just enjoy the film for its humor. It's nice to see Wain embracing the studio system and bringing his films to a wider audience, and pretty much anything with Rudd and Scott warrants a watch from this reviewer. So yeah, that's my bias. That and I have a soft spot for small black children who say, "Fuck you, Miss Daisy", to Caucasian grownups. It's the little things that keep you going.
Review by: Greg MacLennan
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