This film was actually based on a real story. In 2003 Brian Douglas Wells robbed a bank in Pennsylvania with an improvised bomb collar. He also had a cane that he MacGyvered into a shotgun. But he was really old, he was in on the scheme, he thought the bomb was fake, and the bomb proved otherwise to him on national TV. The gang might have got the idea from the movie Swordfish where hostages are strapped with bombs to keep them in line, but nobody can say for sure because they only thing anybody remembers about that movie is that Halle Berry showed her boobs; she even did public appearances geared around that fact to drum up interest in the movie so its not really a surprise. It seems to just be one of those bad ideas that different people arrive at independently. It happened again in Australia this year but at least nobody died.
One aspect the fictional crime shares with the 2003 case is the convoluted reasoning behind the scheme. McBride wants the inheritance that his hard-ass former Marine father Fred Ward won in the lottery, so his favorite stripper tells him that her boyfriend will kill Ward for 100,000 dollars. I wonder if people in the movies ever read about real crime: people get killed for like a few grand! (or less) Shit, shop around or something. Maybe hitmen can tell how green their customers are and overcharge them. Damn, in real life it says they were trying to get 125,000 grand to bankroll the murder for hire. That much money? For an old dude? To quote Waylon Smithers, maybe if we just wait "father time will assassinate him for us."
This movie is R-rated but doesn't feel the need to earn it very much. I only remember a handful of references to weed, less cursing than you might think, brief nudity, and mostly comedic violence. If they told everybody to say 'shit' instead of 'fuck' and edited some of the violence to be less bloody, they easily could have made a PG-13 out of this bad boy. Maybe they thought the subject matter deserved a darker film. They certainly keep the tone light and the story uncluttered: no big lessons to learn, no extraneous characters, and only one unnecessary subplot about Eisenberg quitting his job that disappears as quickly and meaninglessly as it arrived.
Danny McBride plays the same character he always does, but he's pretty good at it. Nick Swardson has to compete ferociously with his own mustache for attention, but he wins out, thanks in part to his strange predilection for always yelling 'you look good sir' at Fred Ward; there was a trailer for a movie before this one where Swardson had a big weird haircut and freakishly gigantic buck teeth. I don't think he needs all the ornamentation. Fred Ward is mostly wasted until a scene where you learn why he picks up a pen when he thinks he hears an intruder in his home.
If you've never heard of Aziz Ansari before this movie will make you a big fan real quick, but if you've seen him on Parks And Recreation you might be a little underwhelmed except that you get to hear him curse. The real scene-stealer is the hitman Chongo played by Michael Pena. He might crack wise like all the other characters, and he might talk with a perpetually amusing hyper-cholo accent, but he is the only real professional criminal present, and he can turn on a dime from bemused Contra-code spouting nice guy to remorseless icy killing machine, all whilst getting the most laughs out of his limited screen time.
The movie has just enough laughs for its modest 83 run time. At least Judd Apatow didn't direct it; then it would probably be 136 goddamn minutes long with lots more schmaltzy bonding. I got that number by averaging the length of Apatow's three directorial features. Holy shit that guy makes long movies. This movie's director Ruben Fleischer, reuniting with his Zombieland star Eisenberg and also re-indulging his love for vibrant credit sequences, knows how to keep your attention and how to end on a high note. There's a bonus sequence after the credits that appears to revive a few of the presumed dead characters, but I don't think a sequel is on anyone's mind.
 |
| Hi I'm Pizza |
No comments:
Post a Comment