At first glance, Role Models looks a lot like the kind of thing you’ve seen before: The guy from American Pie (Seann William Scott) and that guy from The 40-Year-Old-Virgin (Paul Rudd) are forced to do community service mentoring kids to avoid jail time. You know the twosome will grow and change; you know they’ll do well by doing good. But when you’re watching Role Models, it soon becomes apparent that there’s something different going on here — a little skewed, a little off, seriously funny. There are bizarre gags in it that come out of nowhere; there are little jokes at the beginning of it that spark and snap like the crackling of a fuse, and they blow up into huge, brilliant moments of comedy when they’re brought back later on. Wildly separate jokes are brought together to deliver comedy knockouts like five fingers forming a fist. It’s surprisingly smart, and breathtakingly stupid.
Directed by David Wain — who also re-wrote the script alongside writing partner Ken Marino and his star, Rudd — Role Models begins with Danny (Rudd) and Wheeler (Scott), guys whose friendship might be defined by familiarity more than feeling. They work together at the same energy drink company and they’re kind of stuck. Danny’s trapped in a swamp of self-hatred that makes him lash out at coffee baristas and drives his girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks) nuts. Wheeler’s a low-rent womanizer with a wandering eye and shifty morals. But one of their presentations — where they advise kids to stay off drugs while enjoying the brisk taste of Minotaur energy drink — culminates in a parking mishap that gets the two in legal hot water. To avoid jail time, they have to do community service, mentoring two kids — Danny gets the nerdy, nervy Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, best known from Superbad) and Wheeler gets the pint-sized, profane Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson). Danny and Wheeler are just trying to rack up hours to stay out of jail. They don’t care. Until, of course, they do.
Before you think that sounds too touchy-feely, though, it should be noted that Wheeler doesn’t just provide Ronnie with a semi-stable male presence in his life; he also teaches Ronnnie how to check out chicks using his peripheral vision instead of staring. And when Danny finally breaks through his apathy to help Augie with something the kid cares about, it involves Augie’s fierce commitment to the local live-action role-playing tournament, where nerds with foam swords fake-fight in the name of fictional kingdoms. And for a while, it looks like Danny and Wheeler won’t make it, which they — and we — are surprised to realize they regret not because of the jail time but because they’ve let the kids down. (This also leads to Wheeler’s badly-phrased heartfelt plea of apology to Ronnie’s mom: "What I’m trying to say is, when I get out of prison, can I hang out with your 10-year old son?")
Everyone in the film is good — Scott, Thompson, Mintz-Plasse and even supporting players like Jane Lynch (as the rehabbed, repentant supervisor of the charity Danny and Wheeler work with) and Ken Jeong (as the arrogant ‘King’ of Augie’s fantasyland). Rudd, however, is a marvel, and if there’s any justice, Role Models will make him a star. Rudd can turn a curdled, curt "No" into a comedy symphony, spit out a mean-spirited rant so fiercely you can feel his hot breath on your face and then, as Danny comes around, still sell you his transformation completely.
There are plenty of wicked, wild jokes in Role Models, in the mold of The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Knocked Up; you’d be excused for thinking it’s one of the best Judd Apatow comedies Judd Apatow never made. But Wain, Marino and Rudd brought their own comedic sensibility to the script, and it pays off — especially in the climax, which somehow manages to bring you to your feet with exhilaration while making you fall down laughing. Best of all, Role Models mocks what it is and is what it mocks — you’re laughing at the way the movie flips all the traditional moments in pseudo-parental comedic dramas like About a Boy and Big Daddy, but it also manages, in its specific, skewed way, to deliver those moments, too. Role Models is foul-mouthed, warm-hearted, brilliantly stupid … and the best comedy of the year.
Posted on February 5, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Topamax.
Topamax mood stabilizer.