Role Models Movie Review
This movie is crude, vulgar, childish, nerdy…and oh yeah… freaking hilarious (not that you couldn’t tell that by the redband trailer). This is the kind of movie where you expect all the funny parts to be what you saw in the trailer spots on TV, but there’s so much more. Although it starts a little slow telling the stories of two buddies ‘living the dream’ working for an energy drink company, it picks up pretty quickly when they get sentenced to a month of community service for an accident on their promotional tour.
Danny and Wheeler (Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott) face jail time if they can’t pull off a month of working with two outcast kids at the Sturdy Wings mentoring program. Run by recovering addict and general madwoman Gayle Sweeny (Jane Lynch) the guys find themselves trying to hold their own with 15 year old nerd wonder Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and 10 year old foul mouth Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson). Between Gayle’s ramblings and Ronnie’s wisecracks you’ll find yourself wanting more of the awkwardness they contribute.
The lessons in sarcasm by Danny, and the lessons in love by Wheeler, highlight the time between the ‘bigs’ and ‘littles’ as the mentors and kids are called. Camping trips, real life fantasy role playing and awkward social interactions give plenty of fodder for the sight gags and one liners that keep you chuckling though the movie.
There’s a good storyline and messages in the film about friendship, being yourself, and about what all those 30 and 40 year old guys still living with their parents do on the weekends to ‘socialize’ – but don’t let a moral hold you back from seeing this gem.
The only problem I saw in this movie was how little we see of Danny’s girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks) Her role doesn’t allow her to be the funny-woman we’ve seen in movies like Zack and Miri or 40 Year Old Virgin. Besides that, please remember that this is a rated R movie. I was embarrassed for the numbers of families in the theater who brought kids that looked to be 8-10 years old. Maybe they thought the child stars meant it was family friendly, but the language and nudity were definitely not.
Great movie, lots of laughs.
