Saturday Night Live's party boys team up to deliver a charming gem out of leftfield. This film has all the hallmarks of a conventionally dire comedy, but its quirks and erraticism rescue and elevate it beyond the mundane.
Rod (Samberg) is a down-and-out stay-at-home chap desperate to be a stuntman. Ably assisted by his crew (Taccone, Hader & McBride) he performs insipid stunts. Usually he messes them up. And he fights, literally fights, to earn his stepfather's respect. But in a neat, if predictable plot twist, Rod has to take his stunt work to the next level to save the man he so abhors.
The performances are just shy of absurd, but silly enough to keep the laughs coming. Rico taking on a redneck made me guffaw, while Kevin's dancing and mild manners were similarly enjoyable. Meanwhile, the linear and uncreative thread is spiced up with a host of interjections and wrong turns. Sketch comedy's influence is in evidence throughout. But that adds to the film, rather than detracting from it. I was reminded, remarkably, of Napoleon Dynamite and Little Miss Sunshine, two films that contain fairly standard plots and directions, but are riddled with comic episodes and wrong turns.
There's a rock soundtrack too, that's again just short of all out parody, and plenty of quotable, if idiotic lines. When Rod has to take himself to his "happy place" and the next scene we are provided with is him punchdancing his way to happiness, I had to stop the DVD and rewatch. It's delightfully stupid. I wanted to own this film, for repeat views. That's a great way to feel when watching a movie.
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2007
Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Bill Hader, Danny McBridge, Isla Fisher
dir. Akiva Schaffer
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