A surprise sleeper hit this past fall, 'Role Models' may have finally made Paul Rudd a much deserved star after years of scene stealing supporting work. Reteaming with cult director David Wain ('Wet Hot American Summer') and throwing Seann William Scott into the mix, 'Role Models' is very lewd, and very funny.
Crowd-pleasing, David Wain finally gives into commercial peer pressure when seeing partner in crime Rudd rise in stature over the years due to his playing for more popular team, Apatow. With 'The State', 'Wet Hot American Summer', 'The Ten' and 'Stella', Wain and co-writer Paul Rudd decided to get together on a project that people would actually see - the result of which is a R-rated, but sweet, comedy that manages to feel different than the Apatow camp's offerings.
Taking the idea of something like 'The Bad News Bears' and taking it up a notch, we get what feels like a family comedy yet with a constant barrage of f-bombs and sexual expletives flying out of the mouths of adults and children alike. And kids dropping an f-bomb? Inherently funny.
Sean William Scott and Paul Rudd play two energy-drink pitchmen who drive around in a huge truck made up like a 'Minotaur', the name of the energy drink, and visits schools promoting their energy drink in lieu of drugs.
Scott gets to dress up as the beast and dance around while Rudd gets to do the speeches in a suit and tie. At complete odds, Scott goes through life having as much fun as he can while Rudd goes through life having the least amount of fun as he can.
On a particularly miserable day, Rudd's girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) breaks up with him because of his chronic misery and he goes on a Minotaur bender and ends up crashing the company truck into a school statue with Scott being "a party" to the crime. Sentenced to 150 hours of community service to avoid jail, they get assigned to 'Sturdy Wings', a big brother type program where they get to mentor youngsters.
Scott gets a profanity-spewing munchkin (Bobb'e J. Thompson) obsessed with Beyonce and boobies and Rudd is paired with a nerdy, role-playing aficionado (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) who lives and breathes his fake fantasy world to avoid his place in the real one.
You don't have to be a film critic to realize that these emotionally-stunted men will fight these kids at first but then slowly realize that they have a lot to learn from them but what the film does right is not delve too much into schmaltz and keep the earnestness there but at an effective modest level.
The first half does contain the majority of the big laughs as the second half becomes consumed by a role-playing battle that's funny - for about five minutes. Nevertheless, both Rudd and Scott prove consistently funny in roles aimed at their respective strengths, straight Stifler mode for Scott and the dry, sarcasm for Rudd, and Thompson and Plasse are well-matched to the leads. Thompson particularly embraces his role with a young, rebellious glee.
Also stealing a lot of scenes is another Apatow PIC Jane Lynch who heads the mentorship program after a rough cocaine-fueled eighties in the village and who still seems to be feeling the effects.
Ultimately, the humor stays steady which is all you can ask for out of a comedy; it might rely a bit too much on juvenile 'boobie' talk for people who have fooled themselves into thinking such immature antics aren't funny anymore but for the rest of us, prepare to laugh.
The AVC 1.85:1 1080p transfer is sparkling with an extremely clean and detailed look and does a great job making a film with fairly repetitive Los Angeles locations look better than it probably should.
The colorful costumes of the role-playing geeks break up some of the monotony as well the slick Venice location of Scott's residence in the film (although very doubtful he could afford even that apartment in such a location). Not much is required of the aud, but the lossless English DTS-HD Master Audio is a keeper anyway.
The requisite 'Unrated' and 'Rated' versions are presented with a host of special features. There is close to thirty minutes of deleted scenes and alternate takes which always prove to be worth a watch on improv-heavy films.
We also get a gag reel, a 'On the Set of Role Models' featurette, 'Game On: Creating a Role Playing World', 'In Character & Off-Script' and the highlights: a commentary from director David Wain and Universal's BD feature 'U-Control', this time offering up a Picture-in-Picture. The disc is also BD-Live enabled.
It was a great year for R-rated comedies as 'Step Brothers', 'Tropic Thunder', 'Pineapple Express' and 'Role Models' all went on to find success despite the limiting rating and all ending up being quite good in different ways. A Blu-ray with plenty of special features rounds out a great package.
Role Models [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
To help fans keep the Role Models laughs rolling, Universal has launched a Role Models Babe Watcher game online.
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