What a strange film. It's like a mix of The Ringer and Tag with hints of This is 40 and I Love You Man.
For a Farrelly movie it's remarkably tolerable. None of the gross out humor they're known for. That was always the pill you had to swallow with the desert of their laugh out loud comedies. The good ones let you get past it. The bad ones were too gross to fully enjoy. But this is perfectly fine with that respect. There is a character with hair that's far far too long that is gross but not even close to the point where it's distractedly so. There's also a scene in the start where kids step on dog feces and it splatters on their face. For the life of me I'll never understand this prank that I can't call anything but the whitest thing ever. Why on earth would someone's first instinct to seeing a small fire be to stomp on it? That doesn't make any sense and yet I've been watching people do this on TV since I was a child watching 60s sitcoms on Nickelodeon.
Cena's Rock Hard Rod is effective. He's hilarious when he needs to be. His X-Rated songs are all full laugh worthy. He fills out a bloody suit well in Act III. He manages to be that third wheel character without being full on annoying like Bill Murray's Bob in What About Bob? (1991). He's earnest without being cringe. He's a third wheel character you want to root for even if looking at John Cena and seeing a dude who is a loser just doesn't compute.
There's some balls the movie doesn't bother catching. They really flesh out Efron's Dean as a victim of abuse but aside from being a very plausible explanation for his motivations and actions it doesn't really get explored. He never deals with it. He never admits it. It's just a setup with no payoff. Ricky stays on in the movie because of his fear from people he owes money to and (minor spoiler) they never show up. His money issues never become anything. The movie did pay off the inevitable reveal in a way I didn't expect. I assumed that the story would be about how Ricky made the trio better people but while that appears to be the first and easiest idea that movie is better for doing something different. All of this makes the movie fun but it does mean there are parts of the movie that don't resolve.
The movie is also unexpectedly diverse. Honestly if I had remembered this was a Farrelly movie I would have expected a punchline more but they don't come. They don't really do anything. These characters with various "atypicalisms" are just there living their life as part of the movie. Some are important, some aren't. Some speak, some don't. They're just part of the fabric of the narrative. Which is pretty cool and inclusive representation. All in a movie that I have basically no issues recommending which is great.
Review by wolfkinBlockedParent2024-04-23T03:39:01Z
What a strange film. It's like a mix of The Ringer and Tag with hints of This is 40 and I Love You Man.
For a Farrelly movie it's remarkably tolerable. None of the gross out humor they're known for. That was always the pill you had to swallow with the desert of their laugh out loud comedies. The good ones let you get past it. The bad ones were too gross to fully enjoy. But this is perfectly fine with that respect. There is a character with hair that's far far too long that is gross but not even close to the point where it's distractedly so. There's also a scene in the start where kids step on dog feces and it splatters on their face. For the life of me I'll never understand this prank that I can't call anything but the whitest thing ever. Why on earth would someone's first instinct to seeing a small fire be to stomp on it? That doesn't make any sense and yet I've been watching people do this on TV since I was a child watching 60s sitcoms on Nickelodeon.
Cena's Rock Hard Rod is effective. He's hilarious when he needs to be. His X-Rated songs are all full laugh worthy. He fills out a bloody suit well in Act III. He manages to be that third wheel character without being full on annoying like Bill Murray's Bob in What About Bob? (1991). He's earnest without being cringe. He's a third wheel character you want to root for even if looking at John Cena and seeing a dude who is a loser just doesn't compute.
There's some balls the movie doesn't bother catching. They really flesh out Efron's Dean as a victim of abuse but aside from being a very plausible explanation for his motivations and actions it doesn't really get explored. He never deals with it. He never admits it. It's just a setup with no payoff. Ricky stays on in the movie because of his fear from people he owes money to and (minor spoiler) they never show up. His money issues never become anything. The movie did pay off the inevitable reveal in a way I didn't expect. I assumed that the story would be about how Ricky made the trio better people but while that appears to be the first and easiest idea that movie is better for doing something different. All of this makes the movie fun but it does mean there are parts of the movie that don't resolve.
The movie is also unexpectedly diverse. Honestly if I had remembered this was a Farrelly movie I would have expected a punchline more but they don't come. They don't really do anything. These characters with various "atypicalisms" are just there living their life as part of the movie. Some are important, some aren't. Some speak, some don't. They're just part of the fabric of the narrative. Which is pretty cool and inclusive representation. All in a movie that I have basically no issues recommending which is great.