Welcome to this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” On the dock for today, two films marketed as
comedies – but which one is actually funny?
The Dictator (2012)
– Look, I’m a big fan of Sacha Baron Cohen, both his prankumentary style (which
he perfected in 2006’s Borat) and his
more traditional character work (with which he stole Les Misérables). On the
surface, The Dictator ought to be a
delightful blend of those two – a scripted comedy about a hapless Middle
Easterner with a ludicrous accent.
Instead, what you get is a confused and barely-funny satire of... well,
the film never quite focuses on one target long enough for a sustained take on
Arab dictatorship, college yuppie liberalism, or American democracy. Any one of these could be the subject for a
clever comedy, but the odd melding of the three leaves us uncertain who we’re
supposed to root for. Cohen plays
Admiral General Aladeen with his usual enthusiasm, but he’s pumping air into a
disappointingly lifeless script which is, for vast stretches, entirely without
laughs. Many of the gaffes are
predictable, elongated beyond their worth, or just plain unfunny, and even Cohen’s
trademark disappearance behind the character isn’t enough to engage the
audience. There are a few chuckles to be
had – cameos by John C. Reilly and a self-deprecating Megan Fox gesture toward
a palpable and intriguing direction for the film – but mostly the film seems
unsure what it wants to be and tries to be all those things at once, making for
a very disunified whole. The film is a
lot like Ben Kingsley’s role therein (yes, Sir Ben costars): you don’t quite know how so many talented
people got into such a mess, but you’re disappointed that they’re not doing
better work.
21 Jump Street (2012)
– Nothing about this movie screams success; in fact, nothing about the film
should work. A remake of an ’80s TV
show, 21 Jump Street stars Channing
Tatum and Jonah Hill as undercover cops in a high school where new illegal
drugs are being distributed. I
repeat: no part of that sentence has
really ever worked in a movie before.
Yet there’s something about 21
Jump Street that is surprising in a very good way: the movie is very funny, rather clever, and
just downright better than it ought to be.
Hill and Tatum have tangible chemistry as partners, best friends, and
pseudo-brothers; they play off each other like Simon Pegg and Nick Frost do in Shaun of the Dead (among others),
exploiting each other’s foibles while working together to accomplish their
goals. The film is incredibly
self-aware, with many characters acknowledging and poking fun at the fact that
Hill and Tatum look far too old to be high schoolers, but the film’s greater
strength is its funny script given life by a bevy of talented supporting cast
members. It’s almost enough just to
mention their names – Nick Offerman, Ellie Kemper, Rob Riggle – because their
work is reliable and solid. (Kudos also to
Ice Cube, who practically steals the show as a self-conscious walking
stereotype who shouts about Miranda rights and “Korean Jesus.”) And yes, that original 21 Jump cast member makes a fun
appearance, too. A surprisingly
entertaining entry from a team that’s never really delighted me before, 21 Jump Street deserves more than the casual
brush-off its premise usually elicits.
That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the
Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!
Monday, February 18, 2013
Monday at the Movies - February 18, 2013
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