Role Models
Using a simple premise and a pair of average comedic talents, David Wain’s Role Models is a so-so boys-to-men comedy. Wain doesn’t do much in the director’s chair and pretty much sets his performers loose to do their worst. It’s the younger actors, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Bobb’e J. Thompson, who really steal the show and try to turn this run of the mill effort into something worth seeing. Sadly, we’ve seen formulaic comedies like this a thousand times before.
Paul Rudd stars as Danny and Seann William Scott is Wheeler. They are salesmen, traveling to schools peddling a bizarre energy drink. Danny has a generally negative attitude towards life, which causes his relationship with his girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) to hit the bricks. Wheeler, meanwhile, is a womanizer with a positive approach and he attempts to get his friend to share in his glass-half-full view.
Danny doesn’t share Wheeler’s sunlit worldview, however, and trashes the company truck. Upon their arrest, Wheeler and Danny are given the option to do hard time or spend 150 hours of community service in a mentorship program. The pair chooses the latter and are paired with Augie (Mintz-Plasse) and Ronnie (Thompson). Augie is a 16-year-old obsessed with medieval role playing and Ronnie is a fifth grader obsessed with boobies. The remainder of the film uses musical montages and feel-good moments to demonstrate how Danny and Wheeler learn their lessons and relate to these kids.
Rudd and Scott do okay in the leading roles. Rudd’s Danny is certainly the more interesting character and his story arc with Augie is the film’s most entertaining. Mintz-Plasse steals the show with his awkwardness and charisma. It helps that the live action role playing sequences are really fun. Scott, on the other hand, is more of a supporting character and his work with Ronnie lingers in the backseat. Thompson is lively as the crude kid, but he isn’t given as much to do here as you’d expect.
A highlight is Jane Lynch, who plays the ex-addict head of the mentorship program. She’s a strange bird and Lynch revels in creating a wacky character, owning every scene she’s in with her cutting humour. The rest of the cast rounds out well enough, but there are no surefire standouts a la Lynch or Mintz-Plasse.
Role Models does little to separate itself from the blueprint, invoking a sort of Two and a Half Men style and melting it with the humdrum lesson-learning of analogous fare like Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy or the recent Owen Wilson vehicle Drillbit Taylor. Hollywood has frequently used kids to renovate the behaviour of adults, but Role Models attempts to separate itself from the norm by having the kids swear a lot. Regrettably, this flick feels about 10 years past its prime.
At the end of the day, Role Models is a decent distraction. There are some truly funny segments and some good lines, such as the “whispering eye” or the cute relationship between Augie and Queen Esplen (Alexandra Stamler), but overall this movie lacks originality and gets a bit dull (was it just me or was each scene involving Wheeler and Ronnie essentially the same?). Fans of cyclical bawdy humour will get their fill, but the rest of us will probably crave something more significant.
Trailer:
