![]() I love Role Models, for a lot of reasons. She's as charming as always and her presence is appreciated, but she shamefully doesn't get more than a couple blink-and-you'll-miss-'em jokes. Several familiar comedy stars also pop up for very minor cameos (expanded upon in the deleted footage), but Most Wasted goes to Elizabeth Banks. Miles as Martin Gary, a comic caricature of an insufferably cheery do-gooder who steals almost every scene he's in by being inescapably out-of-touch with both reality and social skills. Paul Rudd is the master of the double-take, and he gets plenty of work here reacting to Wheeler's terrible philosophies and questionable double-entendres. While the big jokes involve Thompson's escalating cacophony of profanity and Seann William Scott being naked, what I laugh at most is the quiet absurdity of the lines and the specific delivery of the actors' reactions. The story's sense of balance between all of the characters' relationships rounds it all out wonderfully: everything is doled out in the right amounts, at the right moment.Īs for the comedy itself, there's actually some masterfully subtle humor on tap. Furthermore, the cutting of the jokes is just another form of timing: linger too long on a reaction shot or cut a delivery a second short and the comedy is defused, but the movie knows its beats. Judd Apatow's "everything-and-the-kitchen-sink" style of ad-libbing has led to quite a few overstuffed comedies, and I'm happy to say Role Models doesn't just throw everything at the screen and see what sticks this is sharp stuff. The film runs a sleek 1 hour and 39 minutes (more on the Unrated cut in a bit), and there's not a minute of fat. Role Models' other secret weapon is the editing. Thompson's foul-mouthed tirades, Christoper Mintz-Plasse is especially great, giving Augie a bit of tired cynicism that helps define the character beyond a variation of McLovin, and it's easy to root for him as he tries to romance a fellow player named Sarah (Allie Stamler). without being mocking or condescending, and yet it does both, showing us both Ronnie's good side and the underlying accessibility behind Augie's hobby. It's a challenge to both make Ronnie seem more endearing than infuriating and to look into Augie's love for L.A.I.R.E. Not to say that the two young actors can't fill out their own performances, either. All three of them seem like real people in a way that some dramatic actors couldn't pull off in the number of scenes these characters have here, and on top of it they all get at least a couple of chances to be funny. Their attitude towards Augie's nerdy pastime is far from accepting, and yet they still manage to come off underneath as concerned, loving parents and not just heartless villain caricatures who are mean to Augie. Jim (Ken Marino) and Lynette (Kerri Kenney-Silver), Augie's step-father and mother, respectively, are not as nice. Nicole Randall-Johnson only has a couple of brief scenes, but the minute you see her interact with Ronnie, you understand both their relationship and Ronnie's capability to turn off the language and be a good kid. It's impressive how subtly these kids are fleshed out just through their on-screen parents. (Live-Action Interactive Role-Playing Explorers), and Ronnie Shields (Bobb'e J. Their subjects: Augie Farks (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a shy, awkward lover of L.A.I.R.E. After having a particularly bad day ending in breakups and arrests, he and Wheeler find themselves as mentors in a Big-Brother-style program logging 150 hours of community service in order to avoid 30 days in jail. Luckily, as far as I'm concerned, there's something special in this crowd-pleasing, good-natured and above all, profanely goofy comedy that merits a look beyond just how many times I laughed at it.ĭanny (Paul Rudd) is a brooding, unhappy dick-in-a-rut who constantly worries about his job (hawking the energy drink Minotaur to middle school kids as an alternative to drugs), his association with his party-loving co-worker Wheeler (Seann William Scott), and his straining relationship with his weary lawyer girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks). Yet humor is subjective, and beyond that it's hard to stretch "it's hilarious!" into several paragraphs. ![]() It's my favorite pure comedy of the year, and while I've seen it more times than I'd expect anyone to watch it, it still amuses me. ![]() It's hard to know what to say when reviewing a comedy.
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