Role Models (2008)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Danny (Paul Rudd) and Anson (Seann William Scott) are energy drink promoters, a bit like Red Bull but this stuff makes your urine go green. When Danny's girlfriend breaks up with him he gets into a fight with a tow truck driver after a drinks promotion at a school and both end up getting community service.They enrol in a program run by Gayle (Jane Lynch) an ex drug addict where they are mentors to younger kids. Danny gets Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) who is heavily into dungeons and dragons type role playing. Danny gets a foul mouthed young black kid called Ronnie. Both initially do their community service to count down their hours but realise they need to do more to help these kids and bond with them.Role Models has six credited writers and yet manage to make a forgettable film. It was not until Ken Jeong showed up playing the king in the medieval role playing segment that I realised I had seen this film before!It is an uneasy mixture of bawdy, crude with cloying sentimentality of letting kids be themselves and not let parents mess them up. This might be true for Augie whose mum just wants him to be normal and be out of her way so she can be with her boyfriend. However I cannot buy that Ronnie is so foul mouthed and annoying because his father left him when he was young. We see his mum as loving and supportive.As for the main characters they play the type they have played before. Scott is a variation of Stifler, Rudd is the rather bland sarcastic type, his girlfriend seems to have dumped him because he is not boring enough. Only Jane Lynch gets the best lines as the ex crackhead. The final role playing battle where our main characters come in dressed as members of the rock group Kiss is fun.

This film tells the story of two men who go to various high schools to sell energy drinks and teach teenagers to say no to drugs. One day, they run into trouble with the law, and have to do community service and spend time with children."Role Models" sounds interesting and funny, and the poster sideways it's quite hilarious. The actual film though, is not as funny as I expected. The two adults in question, are not as appallingly behaved as I thought they would be. The two kids are in fact more funny than the Terry adults. The socially awkward kid is convincing, and I feel sorry that he has parents who are not as supportive as they could be. Overall, the film is entertaining enough, but it is not a funny as I thought it would be.

The story is quite good. It departs from a commonly found situation that many people can relate to, and gets to focus really quickly. But despite the good and uncommonly found premise of being an example to kids, the movie is in fact not for kids. Besides that, there are more than enough frames about body parts that are definitely not for kids. Though some of them are weird and just plain odd, the jokes are actually fun to see. Paul Rudd acted just at an average performance, though he managed to get the calm mood portrayed. Sean William Scott is comfortable and is actually quite like at home depicting a carefree womanizer. Instead I like how Elizabeth Bank's performance turned out to be. She really gives it a nice addition into the whole picture.

"So, do you like Coca-Cola?" "I like the idea of it more than I actually like it."Off the wall moments like that are the reason I watch this movie back again and again. Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott are the straight guys playing against a cast of wackos. I thought the film needed to be a little better balanced between the scenes of the LAIRE game and scenes dealing with Ronnie. It felt like Ronnie's arc got cut short a little bit, whereas we see a more complete story of how Danny helps Augie gain confidence and acceptance. I always like Ken Jeong, but this is one of my favorite roles of his--little details like his ordering the Denver Omlet stuck with me and add to the repeat value. I'm glad it is R rated and makes the most of it. It is good enough to be worth owning. Now exit my Burger Hole, boy.