I just found this on an old USB drive. I stuck some files on it when my computer became infected a couple of years ago, before I had the hard disc wiped. I should have probably preserved the A-grade dissertation that I'd spent months working on instead, but back then I was young and had time on my side. I mean, how was I to know I'd wind up like this? Having said that, kudos to 22 year old me for holding onto MP3 files of Richard & Linda Thompson's 'First Light' LP, still out of print to this day.
I rush-wrote the piece because I was film editor for the University paper and some jerk who was supposed to submit copy to me for an urgent deadline wasn't answering my calls. I attended every press screening I could back then, often for movies I had no intention of reviewing or even enjoying, so had plenty of 'material' to draw from. History will ultimately prove kinder to Paris Hilton's The Hottie & the Nottie, but Role Models was enjoying quite a big marketing push at the time.
Remember, this piece is from 2009. Keane had just put out their third album and an overpowering sense of optimism was sweeping across campus. Some of the views expressed may seem a little trite and naive to modern audiences, but the noughties dream was still burning in our hearts back then and my review is nothing if not sincere.
Role Models
Dir. David Wain
Universal, 2008
Role Models opens with a comic set piece in which Stifler from American Pie forces Paul Rudd to smell his index and middle fingers, alluding to having recently inserted them into the subservient babe whose sports car he has just fled. With expert timing and feline agility, Rudd recoils, the word 'dude!' echoing throughout the multiplex. His intonation is wonderful and the scene is played out to utter perfection. From Stifler's bold, nihilistic gesture to the measured ambiguity of Rudd's response, audiences are swept up in a vital and inventive celebration of cinematic possibility and transported to modern day Los Angeles or wherever these sleazebags live.
The film revolves around the characters Danny (Rudd) and Wheeler (Stifler). When Danny's long term girlfriend breaks up with him for being too cynical, he develops grave emotional problems and commits a serious parking offence with his best friend in tow. The pair seek legal counsel from Danny's ex and are sentenced to community service with a 'Big Brother' agency. Forced to support wayward minors, Wheeler and Danny must learn to curb their selfish tendencies so that they may avoid jail and win back that the latter's love interest, who they will presumably then share.
With a plot so formulaic that it would cause even Adam Sandler to wretch in disgust, David Wain's latest offering is predictably crass, unimaginative and disposable. However amusing much of his output is, it remains a sad state of affairs that Judd Apatow is considered one of the decade's most credible comedic forces and that the likes of Wain are willing to ape his 'bromedies' quite so brazenly. Here even the inclusion of Superbad's Christopher Mintz-Plasse in a one-dimensional supporting role is treated as a great casting coup.
The frustrating thing about Role Models is the inconsistency with which it appals. There are flashes of well written material on display, the film even boasting a potentially classic character in Christopher Guest regular Jane Lynch's depiction of the strung-out Big Brother manager. Rudd and Wain are clearly capable of producing clever and inventive material, they're just too content to rely on a tried and tested framework of tiresome scatological humour, already outdated pop culture references and schmaltzy resolutions.
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