My take: “Role Models”
I attended the press screening for “Role Models” with every intention of reviewing it for The Oklahomanand NewsOK, but then a wicked-bad stomach virus struck. Pray you don’t get it because it completely derailed me last week and prevented me from getting the review done on time. But I still wanted to share with you my thoughts on “Role Models,” so here goes:
You won’t find Judd Apatow’s name anywhere on the credits for “Role Models,” but his influence is apparent in the raunchy-but-surprisingly-sweet tone of the humor, as well as in the casting of Apatow regulars Paul Rudd, Jane Lynch and Elizabeth Banks.
The hilarious comedy turns a formulaic premise with a huge potential for schmaltziness and turns it inside-out: Two screw-ups (Rudd and Seann William Scott of “American Pie” fame) sentenced to community service get stuck mentoring two misfit kids (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, in his second film after the Apatow-produced “Superbad,” and Bobb’e J. Thompson) that they unexpectedly grow to care about.
Scott and Rudd play buddies and co-workers Wheeler and Danny, who work for an energy drink company called Minotaur and spend their days traveling in an elaborate minotaur-themed to schools giving “don’t do drugs” speeches. Wheeler’s role is to dress in the gaudy “Minotaur Man” costume and bounce around the stage, a job that the freewheeling party dude thinks is just great fun.
Danny’s part involves slugging down $4-a-can caffeine-loaded sludge while cheerily exhorting kids to avoid drugs. The irony isn’t lost on Danny, who feels his life is at a dead-end and complains bitterly about it.
Danny decides that his life needs a good shakeup, so he impulsively proposes to his longtime girlfriend Beth (Banks, who unfortunately isn’t given much to do). But Beth is tired of his downer attitude and not only refuses, but breaks up with him.
Flying high on too many energy drinks, Danny, with Wheeler playing his usual sidekick role, gets involved in a big, funny vehicular incident and runs afoul the law. Beth, an attorney, manages to wrangle a pair of options for them: jail or 150 hours of community service with the Sturdy Wings mentoring program.
A Big Brothers/Big Sisters ripoff, Sturdy Wings was created and is operated by former drug addict Sweeney (the scene-stealing Lynch), whose sincere dedication to the program is offset by her sudden spurts of hard-boiled toughness and knack for mangling metaphors with unintentionally hilarious results.
Sweeney gives the court-ordered “volunteers” two of her toughest cases: Wheeler is assigned Ronnie (Thompson, who shows supreme confidence for a 12-year-old actor), a shockingly foul-mouthed troublemaker who has run off every other “Big” assigned him in mere minutes.
Danny’s assigned “Little” is 16-year-old Augie (Mintz-Plasse), a geeky teenager whose only interest is a medieval-style live-action role-playing game called LAIRE.
Danny and Wheeler initially take an attitude of grudging obligation toward their charges, but they eventually shelf their selfish ways and grow care about and sympathize with their real problems.
While the bonding is undeniably sweet, it isn’t exactly done in a TV after-school special kind of way. Wheeler shares his abiding love for KISS with Ronnie, resulting a funny but very wrong bonding scene over the meaning of the song “Love Gun.”
At the same time, Danny and Augie bond because neither is in Sturdy Wings by choice; Augie’s mom and stepdad have enrolled him in the program in the hopes of getting him involved in something besides the role-playing game he loves and they consider weird.
Danny eventually gets drawn into the world of LAIRE alongside Augie, helping him maneuver the foam-sword battles and outrageous politics of the live-action fantasy realm.
The two interests - KISS and LAIRE – are brought together in a hilariously satisfying conclusion that makes the movie worth seeing.
-BAM
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