Director – David Wain
Writers – Paul Rudd, David Wain, Ken Marino, Timothy Dowling (all screenplay)
Starring – Paul Rudd, Sean William-Scott, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb’e J. Thompson
…
Synopsis
After his girlfriend dumps him, Danny (Rudd) and his coworker Wheeler (William-Scott) go on an energy drink fuel bender and crash their truck into a schools statue, whilst resisting arrest from a police officer. The court gives them the choice of 30 days of jail or 150 of community service working for a mentorship program. Danny tries to win back his girlfriends heart and understand his “little” (the kid he is allocated) whilst Wheeler deals with his littles bad manor and tries to score with some dudes wife.
Review
Firstly, I think we need to think about what to expect from a film such as this. A basic and generic plot; a lot of toilet humour; flashes of female nudity and audience participation (ie people shouting shit at the screen when it pleases them). Role Models delivers on all accounts. However there is more to offer from this popcorn flick than you might think.
Paul Rudd and David Wain, who both worked on Anchorman, have done a nice job with the screenplay; keeping the story light and easy to digest for the typical target audience and delivering a few “big belly laughs” (according to James King of BBC Radio One)… Not sure about that, but the toilet humour is there for those who lap that kind of thing up and there are also subtle comedy moments for those that were dragged along to watch it.
Rudd does a nice job as Danny as he and William-Scott’s character Wheeler bounce off of each other well. Its a shame that they are split up for the most part of the film as Wheeler and his kid feel outmatched by the Danny/McLovin’ duo.
If you are becoming as fed up with films attempting to reproduce the results of Anchorman as much as I am; then I would suggest you avoid this film. On the other hand if you are content with watching the same regurgitated gags again and don’t really give a shit about plot then I would recommend this one for you. All in all Role Models offers more than we are to expect from the trailer, so at least it isn’t a huge let down.
Overall – Light, fun and easily forgotten.
Guy Davis Film Review 
January 13, 2009 at 12:16 pm |
i’m quite keen to watch this flick. but like you said, its quite generic. could you give an example or 2 of the types of jokes? maybe even tell one? cos generalising toilet humour could be as vague as a cock sticking through a shower room wall in porkey’s to several more high brow examples in police academy.