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PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
2008 - David Gordon Green
Thank goodness television executives were too stupid to understand Judd Apatow's greatness when they had him. Maybe most surprisingly in this story of incompetent network decision making, only one of the them were the nitwits at FOX, the other being the nitwits at NBC. It's a well-known tale now, but after Apatow had a couple quality TV series in "Freaks & Geeks" and "Undeclared" unceremoniously canceled before they had a chance to find the audience they deserved (and a third where the pilot wasn't even picked up), Judd made his way to the big screen. To everyone's benefit.
Starting with The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and now including projects he doesn't direct but produces and helps guide to the greenlight including Knocked Up, Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Apatow and company have brought the R-Rated comedy actually made for those over the age of thirteen into a glorious Renaissance, with (so far, anyway) amazing quality control and not just getting something made because he has the power but because they're good scripts brought to life by good people.
The latest in those string of successes is Pineapple Express, co-written by one of its stars and Apatow regular, Seth Rogen, and directed by indiestar David Gordon Green, new to the Apatow fold. And it may well have the most laughs of any of these movies yet. Simple plot: a twenty-five-year-old slacker of a process server named Dale (Rogen) accidentally witnesses a murder by a would-be drug kingpin. He runs to his doofus of a dealer, the good natured perpetually baked Saul (James Franco), and together they flee for their lives, fearing the kingpin (Gary Cole) will be able to identify them from the rare strain of pot Dale left at the scene, the titular Pineapple Express. What follows is essentially an action movie, as far as the plotting. It might have been an episode of "Miami Vice" circa 1985, but what makes it so funny is that it is essentially played straight. Or at least, Hollywood straight. Like Simon Pegg's Shaun of the Dead almost all of the comedy derives not from spoofing the genre but by placing incompetent average Joes at the center of it all, and instead of them magically becoming Bruce Willis they have to bumble and bluff their way through it.
These characters and their little asides and attitude of general fear layered into a genre story of murder and mayhem around Los Angeles plays so much more "real" than escapist junk like the Rush Hour series, but also ten times funnier. There are long, rolling, sustained laughs from beginning to end, the kind that you're going to have to wait and see it a second or third time on DVD before you even catch all the dialogue because you can't hear it over your own guffaws. And the fight scenes! Hysterical because they're so damn messy and give the illusion of not being choreographed. It also opens with a period sequence that I found more worthwhile than the opening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Unlike that blockbuster, Pineapple Express delivers on every expectation and then some. Rogen and Franco, who co-starred in "Freaks & Geeks", are perfect, as are the varied members of the supporting cast including Rosie Perez as a crooked Cop, Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson (Darryl from the warehouse on "The Office") as a pair of bickering hitmen, Ed Begley Jr. & Nora Dunn as the parents of Rogen’s High School-aged girlfriend and Danny R. McBride as another dealer who steals every single scene he's in.
I saw one of the other R-Rated comedies of the Summer last week, Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder. While that one had what they call in the business a "high concept" it failed to deliver beyond the set-up. Pineapple Express is much more simple on paper but its high characters make it all a joyous and outrageous pleasure. The Apatow gang continue to spin their particular oxymoronic magic: stupid comedies for smart people.
GRADE: B+
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
2008 - David Gordon Green
Thank goodness television executives were too stupid to understand Judd Apatow's greatness when they had him. Maybe most surprisingly in this story of incompetent network decision making, only one of the them were the nitwits at FOX, the other being the nitwits at NBC. It's a well-known tale now, but after Apatow had a couple quality TV series in "Freaks & Geeks" and "Undeclared" unceremoniously canceled before they had a chance to find the audience they deserved (and a third where the pilot wasn't even picked up), Judd made his way to the big screen. To everyone's benefit.
Starting with The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and now including projects he doesn't direct but produces and helps guide to the greenlight including Knocked Up, Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Apatow and company have brought the R-Rated comedy actually made for those over the age of thirteen into a glorious Renaissance, with (so far, anyway) amazing quality control and not just getting something made because he has the power but because they're good scripts brought to life by good people.
The latest in those string of successes is Pineapple Express, co-written by one of its stars and Apatow regular, Seth Rogen, and directed by indiestar David Gordon Green, new to the Apatow fold. And it may well have the most laughs of any of these movies yet. Simple plot: a twenty-five-year-old slacker of a process server named Dale (Rogen) accidentally witnesses a murder by a would-be drug kingpin. He runs to his doofus of a dealer, the good natured perpetually baked Saul (James Franco), and together they flee for their lives, fearing the kingpin (Gary Cole) will be able to identify them from the rare strain of pot Dale left at the scene, the titular Pineapple Express. What follows is essentially an action movie, as far as the plotting. It might have been an episode of "Miami Vice" circa 1985, but what makes it so funny is that it is essentially played straight. Or at least, Hollywood straight. Like Simon Pegg's Shaun of the Dead almost all of the comedy derives not from spoofing the genre but by placing incompetent average Joes at the center of it all, and instead of them magically becoming Bruce Willis they have to bumble and bluff their way through it.
These characters and their little asides and attitude of general fear layered into a genre story of murder and mayhem around Los Angeles plays so much more "real" than escapist junk like the Rush Hour series, but also ten times funnier. There are long, rolling, sustained laughs from beginning to end, the kind that you're going to have to wait and see it a second or third time on DVD before you even catch all the dialogue because you can't hear it over your own guffaws. And the fight scenes! Hysterical because they're so damn messy and give the illusion of not being choreographed. It also opens with a period sequence that I found more worthwhile than the opening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Unlike that blockbuster, Pineapple Express delivers on every expectation and then some. Rogen and Franco, who co-starred in "Freaks & Geeks", are perfect, as are the varied members of the supporting cast including Rosie Perez as a crooked Cop, Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson (Darryl from the warehouse on "The Office") as a pair of bickering hitmen, Ed Begley Jr. & Nora Dunn as the parents of Rogen’s High School-aged girlfriend and Danny R. McBride as another dealer who steals every single scene he's in.
I saw one of the other R-Rated comedies of the Summer last week, Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder. While that one had what they call in the business a "high concept" it failed to deliver beyond the set-up. Pineapple Express is much more simple on paper but its high characters make it all a joyous and outrageous pleasure. The Apatow gang continue to spin their particular oxymoronic magic: stupid comedies for smart people.
GRADE: B+