Spaceghost's Review

Summary - Great 4.0

I have not been caught more off guard by a comedy, well, probably ever. This was not the movie I thought it would be and given some time and distance I couldn’t be any happier that it wasn’t.

You see the trailer and it looks like another solid Seth Rogan comedy. It is for sure, but its also so much more. This comedy goes straight for the throat and surpasses what I can now see is the comedy “safety zone”. This is something that I feel South Park does on a regular basis, but this hits harder because its live action. There is no safety in being a cartoon here. There are parts in this movie that I was pretty uncomfortable because its stuff that just isn’t joked about. For example, we find that Rogan’s character, Ronnie, actually is not in his right mind. He’s bipolar and medicated (at least for part of the movie). When we find that out, it now steps a bit out of being funny and being kinda dangerous. Do we laugh at this guy anymore when we find out part of who is comes from a mental instability? The answer turns out to be yes. Hell yes. The character and the subject matter are so expertly handled by writer/director Jody Hill that you actually come to celebrate this unstable mook by the end of the flick. Reality is actually this dirty and scary, but that doesn’t mean you can’t laugh at it.

I think Wick’s review nailed it when comparing Ronnie to Travis Bickle of Taxi Driver. Only this time by the end of the flick you will be laughing and cheering for Bickle. You will, however, have to dwell on the film a bit and really think about it before you realize how great it actually is as a movie.

Acting - Really Great 4.5

Much as I love Seth Rogan, I never saw him as an actor of incredible depth. I think he’s got incredible comic timing and delivery, but all his characters are pretty similar. Ronnie Barnhardt is so much different but based in the same place which I think makes Rogan very effective. He’s still loveable schlub Rogan, but there is a deeper trouble to him that you understand and sympathize with because of how Rogan plays him. The most character defining moment? Ray Liotta drops Rogan in the middle of a crack neighborhood to teach him a lesson. Just as we think Rogan is going to be beat half to death, he lays it down and beats the hell out of a gang of crackheads. Now we see the real danger in this character – not only is he delusional, but he’s able to physically back it up.

Anna Faris was soooo much better in this than in House Bunny and all I can say is thank god. Anna is back in top comedic form, playing your typical “pretty girl”. This is the girl that all the guys lust after. The kind of girl where you “hit it and quit it”. She’s slutty, self-centered, but hot enough that you’ll risk it just for one night. The perfect girl for Ronnie’s affections.

Ray Liotta is great. Great pairing with Rogan as a contrast to how Ronnie sees the world and how it actually is.

I will also agree with Wick that Collette Wolfe as Nell was a very welcome surprise. She was so genuine and sweet and brimming with hope and emotion. I waited the entire flick for Ronnie to wise up and go for Nell, even though its a very cliched move to make in the story, I was with them the whole way. That’s how much I love this girl.

Film - Great 4.0

I think Jody Hill created a fantastic world filled with very real characters. I don’t think there are very many directors who could take this subject and really deliver it this well. It helps tremendously that Hill also wrote the flick, but it makes the accomplishment no less fantastic. I think part of the reason this movie was panned to a large extent was because how real it is. Movies are seen as a way to escape reality and more often than not they are a heightened reality, either making it a much more safe world or much more dangerous. This movie was very real and most people don’t like being confronted with that – especially when you’re making jokes about it.

Edge - Horrid 4.0

This film is violent, sexual and crude. The language is just the starting point of this category. Now I cuss like a sailor and it usually doesn’t even register when people around me (or in movies) do the same. This movie actually made me stop and think, "I honestly don’t know that I’ve heard the f word so much in my entire life.

Put that on top of Ronnie tazing, beating or shooting people, an extremely uncomfortable sex scene and a very naked flabby streaker and you’ll find that this movie is not for the faint of the heart. This is only the 2nd or 3rd time that I have seen people leave the theater out of disgust.

Reality - Glib 2.0

As I’ve said before, this movie is very real. Socially, this movie is freakin dead on. From Ronnie’s alcoholic mom (who has a reality check when Ronnie isn’t there one night to put her to bed after she passes out drunk) to Ronnie himself, its very real situations. The largest departure from reality is the fact that Ronnie is somehow not already in jail. The way he works in the mall and the things he does – its very hard to believe that he’s actually still working there.

1 Comment

• Wick Apr 26, 2009 8:55PM

  Regarding Spaceghost’s Review
  Great review Spaceghost. I agree especially with how you characterized it as “funny and dangerous”. I was trying to get to that by likening it in some ways to Borat.

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