Movie Review: The Out-Laws (2023)

Genre: Comedy

Director: Tyler Spindel

Starring: Adam Devine, Pierce Brosnan, Ellen Barkin, Julie Hagerty, Nina Dobrev, Michael Rooker

Running Time: 95 minutes

Synopsis: Bank manager Owen (Adam DeVine) is about to marry his girlfriend Parker (Nina Dobrev). He meets her parents Billy and Lilly (Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin) for the first time, and soon afterwards his bank is robbed. Owen suspects his future in-laws are the famous Ghost Bandits, who have long been pursued by the FBI's Agent Oldham (Michael Rooker). Billy and Lilly have unfinished business with ruthless mobster Rehan (Poorna Jagannathan), while Owen has to keep his bride-to-be safe and earn the respect of her family.

What Works Well: Some of the chase scene enjoy a manic vibe, and veterans Pierce Brosnan and Ellen Barkin cut through the nonsense with a nostalgic edge.

What Does Not Work As Well: This is a lazy and predictable crime comedy, underwritten and overacted in equal measures. Profanity is used as a crutch for a glaring lack of wit, few jokes land, the attempted plot is a childish mishmash of ideas, and Adam DeVine mugs his way into an embarrassing performance. Perhaps not surprisingly, co-produced by Adam Sandler.

Conclusion: The Out-Laws belongs in the outhouse.



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Movie Review: Pitch Perfect (2012)

A bright comedy and musical, Pitch Perfect wades into the offbeat world of acapella college group rivalries.

Beca (Anna Kendrick) is a freshman at Barden University, where the all-boys Treblemakers compete with the all-girls Barden Bellas for acapella group supremacy. Beca is an aspiring DJ and only attending college to please her father, but joins the Bellas after meeting the group's leaders Aubrey (Anna Camp) and Chloe (Brittany Snow). Another freshman, an Australian who calls herself Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson), is also among the group's newcomers.

As the academic year progresses the Bellas strive to improve and qualify for the regional and national championships. But the champion Treblemakers, led by the brash Bumper (Adam DeVine), provide tough competition. Beca clashes with Aubrey over the Bellas' choice of music, and starts to catch the attention of Jesse (Skylar Astin), a Treblemaker, although the Bellas have a rule against hookups with the competition.

Shining a spotlight on a corner of campus weirdness, Pitch Perfect adapts the non-fiction book by Mickey Rapkin as an unironic celebration of quirkiness. The characters inhabiting the acapella world all know they are somewhat nerdy, but stop short of frivolous self-awareness. The collegiates take the singing and competitions seriously, and their ecosystem, like any other campus niche, is a microcosm of the growing into adulthood experience.

The smart screenplay by Kay Cannon deserves much of the credit for sufficiently rounding several of the Bellas within their acapella world while maintaining a caustic edge. Beca is a change agent, Aubrey the defender of the status-quo, while Amy is uninhibited and unfiltered. Chloe is perhaps the most complex, a peacemaker with an open mind caught between loyalty and advancement. They are all starting to accumulate life's emotional baggage, and growing into people worth knowing.

The romance elements between Beca and Jesse are more standard and relatively underdeveloped, and the film's other loose strands include Beca's relationship with her father. The darkest humour comes from the competition commentators played by Elizabeth Banks (who co-produced the film) and John Michael Higgins. They infuse their booth duties with all the overinflated seriousness of major sports coverage, laced with a large dose of politically incorrect banter.

Director Jason Moore populates the film with plenty of peripheral fun in the form of typical college residents and tensions, from the student-run radio station to dorm roommates knocking on the edges of eccentricity. Even some of the rank-and-file acapella group members pop with personality.

The music is a mix of familiar and restless, Beca's penchant for innovative mixes just waiting for an impeccable moment to burst forth. Imminently likable, Pitch Perfect hits most of the right notes.

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Movie Review: Isn't It Romantic (2019)

A satirical romantic comedy, Isn't It Romantic tries to poke lame holes at an already self-perforated genre.

In New York City, Natalie (Rebel Wilson) grew up not believing in romance, and is particularly disdainful of the fairytale representations of love in traditional Hollywood romantic comedies. She works as an architect, allows her co-workers to take advantage of her, and is blind to interest from colleague Josh (Adam DeVine). Rich and dishy client Blake (Liam Hemsworth) does not even notice her.

Natalie tangles with a mugger, is knocked out and wakes up in an alternative rom-com reality where the city is pristine, everyone looks beautiful, her apartment is idyllic and Blake is immediately smitten. She plays along and starts a relationship with him, while Josh starts dating model Isabella (Priyanka Chopra) after a meet-cute moment. But Natalie learns that all the fluffy romance is not the answer to her problems.

Making fun of romantic comedies is just too easy, as the genre never represents itself as anything other than modern-day retellings of boy-meets-girl lightweight fairytales with the absolute promise of a happily-ever-after ending. Isn't It Romantic loudly proclaims all the genre's formulaic faults before proceeding to replicate them, as the second half in particular fizzles out into boring predictability.

Natalie's frumpy and imperfect life, seen at the start and end, offers some organic opportunities to celebrate fresh perspectives on modern single living, but the script decides to spend most of its time in the sanitized fantasy of immaculate streetscapes and handsome happy people, and simply does not offer enough of a satirical edge. And so for a long stretch Natalie is stuck in a world overloaded with cliches, as is the film.

Todd Strauss-Schulson directs with little panache, and star Rebel Wilson as Natalie is caught between mocking romance and succumbing to the imperative of finding a happy ending, satisfying no one in the process.

Isn't It Romantic desperately does not want to be what it ultimately is.

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Movie Review: Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016)

A raunchy comedy, Mike And Dave Needs Wedding Dates celebrates girls and boys gone wild by offering a few laughs and plenty of improvisation. However, the overall quality is marginal.

Brothers Mike (Adam DeVine) and Dave (Zac Efron) run a liquor distribution business but are better known for regularly wrecking family events with their wild partying antics. With the destination wedding of their sister Jeanie (Stephanie Beard) to Eric (Sam Richardson) coming up in Hawaii, the brothers are warned by their parents that they each need to bring a nice girl as a date to keep their behaviour in check. They advertise on social media and soon their quest for two nice girls goes viral.

Best friends and roommates Alice (Anna Kendrick) and Tatiana (Aubrey Plaza) are party animals and the furthest thing from nice girls, with Alice also an emotional wreck after being abandoned at the altar. But spotting an opportunity for a free vacation they scrub themselves down, adopt wholesome personas, plot a seemingly accidental meeting with Mike and Dave, and are soon picked to be the wedding dates. The foursome arrive in Hawaii, and predicably they are unable to control their natural tendencies to cause havoc at every turn.

Directed by Jake Szymanski and very loosely based on real events, Mike And Dave Needs Wedding Dates is a foul-mouthed anything-goes comedy for adults, celebrating grown-ups who prefer to avoid grown-up responsibilities. The good news is that the film generally avoids jokes about body odour, farts and other secretions, and the girls and guys enjoys balanced amounts of debauchery and irresponsibility. The film is an equal opportunity outlet for bad behaviour, with Alice and Tatiana summarily rejecting any judgment of their lifestyle, least of all from fellow losers like Mike and Dave.

The bad news is that the humour is more miss than hit, there is too much obvious improvisation, plenty of over-acting, and not enough plot, even for a comedy obvious in its intentions to just go looking for the next rude punchline. Scenes are dragged out beyond their best-by date, the editing falling victim to the improvised dialogue where no one is sure where the next joke will come from - or if it's coming at all.

Once Mike, Dave and their dates arrive in Hawaii after the first 20 minutes, very little actually happens other than set-pieces intended to derail Jeanie and Eric's big day. Some of these are quite funny, including Jeanie receiving a spectacularly erotic massage and Tatiana tangling with the lesbian cousin of the brothers. But a drug-induced interlude featuring Jeanie and Alice is less successful, and the awakening of the foursome to the consequences of all their antics is contrived in the extreme.

Mike And Dave Needs Wedding Dates delivers on its minimal promise with a few solid laughs, but the film never rises beyond its predictable stature as an easy to forget time-passer.

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