We’re the
Millers
(2013)
Last
summer’s surprise hit comedy is more notable for what it doesn’t do than what
it does, given its major selling points. It’s a pot comedy in which no one
smokes any pot. It also features Jennifer Aniston as a stripper who doesn’t
actually strip. And it’s replete with
gross out and sex gags but reveals itself to be deeply, deeply conservative in
nature. Oh, and most importantly of all it’s a comedy that isn’t terribly
funny.
This is one
of those laughers that has come together (or fallen apart) through improvisation. Sometimes that
works (Anchorman) sometimes it
doesn’t (here). Rawson Marshall Thurber had a big hit a decade ago with a
comedy that is funny, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, but
his modus operandi here seems to be that, if he gives his players enough slack,
they’ll come up with the goods. Which fails resoundingly.
The premise
is sound enough, as one that might eke out a few chuckles, even given the
stretch of its drug smuggling backbone; an unlikely quartet pose as a family in
order to courier two metric tonnes of weed across the border from Mexico (the
stupidest part of this, not that I should really be looking for logic anyway,
has a drug dealer who’d for some reason actually believe he’d be paid £100k to
smuggle a tiny amount of weed). You’ve got the small time dealer “dad” (Jason Sudeikis),
the stripper “mom” (Jennifer Aniston), the virgin “son” (Will Poulter) and the
runaway “daughter” (Emma Roberts).
All easy, obvious hooks on which to hang
mirth. And (of course!) through the hijinks that ensue they come to know the
meaning and importance of a real nuclear family! Isn’t it adorable! But as it’s
R-rated and edgy really, throw in a ball-biting spider (and because it hasn’t
been done umpteen times, show the inflamed results too, as that hasn’t been par
for the course at all since There’s Something About Mary. The
hilarity!) And some jokes about big black cocks (basically an uninspired
version of When Harry Met Sally’s loony
charades game) and swingers (really? Is this 1975?)
The gang
succeeds in their mission to cross the border during the first half of the
movie, which means by the second, when they are pursued by a drug lord and
encounter a narcotics cop, everyone is going through the motions of trying to
keep the ship from sinking. The obsession with quality control-free improv
means most of Sudeikis’ lines fall flat. Worse he only ever sounds like he’s
making stuff up on the spot; there’s no attempt to maintain character (at one
point he breaks the fourth wall, which is actually infinitely preferable to
circling the same “daring” routines over and over).
As
non-descript a lead as Sudeikis is, and as ineffectual a comedian, he fares
better than Ed Helms as his drug dealer boss. Helms is a complete wash out, repeating
painfully unfunny from riffs about his pet killer whale and new-found passion
for ice sculptures. It’s horrific to see him dying so resoundingly. Aniston is a good sport, and looks great, but
she was frankly funnier and sexier in Horrible
Bosses. Both Poulter and Roberts acquit themselves well, and it’s telling
that the funniest scene involves the girl Poulter is besotted with walking in
on “mom” and “sis” teaching him how to kiss (that’s right, the brand comedians
don’t contribute).
Nick
Offerman and Kathryn Hahn as fellow RV holidaymakers are also improvising like
crazy, but because they maintain character and all-important deadpan they have
a better hit ratio than Sudeikis (Hahn has a particularly good line about
throwing a hot dog down a hallway). But this movie is the predictable face of
current US comedy movies all over. It must feature a toothless cavalcade of
affirmative encounters punctuated by as many tiresomely predictable crude, witless
or crass gags (speaking of which Luis Guzman is an “any role any time anywhere”
guy these days, isn’t he?) If the approach is that any given nob gag will hit
the spot, it’s no wonder the result is as a limp as this (there’s even “enough”
material for an extended version; I’d hoped those were on the way out).
The only
upside to this picture is that if features weed but Seth Rogen doesn’t appear. Maybe
because he wasn’t allowed to get off his tits. Sudeikis does his best to be as nearly
as charmless a lead. I haven’t minded him elsewhere (although, come to think of
it, I’m only really conscious of him from Horrible
Bosses). If this is a Chevy Chase Vacation
movie in all but name, and without Chase, it bodes horribly for Sudeikis assuming
the mantle of Fletch in the upcoming Fletch
Won. This is exactly the type of movie that becomes a big hit out of
nowhere and then no one can remember how or why they saw it, or even if they
saw it, a year later. A much more likeable movie (nothing great, but likeable,
which is a key distinction) about a fake family came out a few years back
called The Joneses. Somehow that one
managed to pull off the trick of bringing them all together at the end without
making the viewer feel physically ill.
**