‘Pineapple Express’ or “When I hear women say they find Seth Rogan attractive it makes me feel better about myself” (Review)

Posted by danhacker

August 16, 2008

There is only one place this year where you can experience a buddy comedy, a stoner film and an action movie, and that is in the new Seth Rogen and James Franco film, ‘Pineapple Express‘. This new comedy from the Judd Apatow gang wants to be a hybrid of all of these different film genres, but the end result is a film that can’t commit to what it wants to be. Written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, ‘Pineapple Express’ has a similar feel to last year’s ‘Superbad,’ which they also penned together. The key difference is that in ‘Superbad,’ underneath all of the crude humor was a heterosexual male love story between two close friends. It had a surprising amount of heart buried in it. Goldberg and Rogen seem to try to emulate some of what made ‘Superbad’ so entertaining and memorable but never commit to it fully. Instead what is on-screen is more of a brief script outline with more improvised moments than thought out character development. ‘Superbad’ featured a set of protagonists that showed personal growth by the end of the film, whereas here the characters are constant and the only thing that changes are the absurd situations they are put into. This is not the type of film that is meant to be concerned with in-depth character building. The characters on display in this film are exactly what you get and nothing deeper.

‘Pineapple Express’ puts Seth Rogen into the shoes of Dale Denton, a lowly process-server who smokes weed on the job and dates a high school girl (an oddly never resolved subplot so don’t invest in it). Dale’s dealer and friend, Saul Silver (James Franco), is a borderline shut-in who loves cereal and ‘227′ reruns. Together these two get involved in a gang war, police corruption- all the while trying to avoid hit men, the police and angry girlfriends.

What this movie tries to emulate is that sense of the 1980’s action comedies like ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and ‘Lethal Weapon’. Where the action scenes are intense and realistic enough to believe, but instead of a debonair hero you have your “average Joe” character as the protagonist instead of someone much more qualified.

Since I first watched the trailer and saw a brief moment of Seth Rogen doing kung-fu wirework, I knew I wanted to see ‘Pineapple Express.’ I wanted to see a movie that brought in wirework into a comedy for no good reason beyond pure absurdity. There is lots of absurdity and hilarity but the action scenes are not spectacular, they are entertaining even if they are generic. There is no evoking of those memorable films from the 1980’s: if anything it feels more like a video game. If a character needs ammunition for their weapon, surprise there is either a fresh clip or brand new weapon magically in front of them. It’s humorous, but the visual gag gets used too much.

The biggest weakness of this film is that the Apatow group has been consistently putting out topnotch comedies and are now setting their own standards for their films and that standard is high (ex. ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’). However, ‘Pineapple Express’ seems like a sub-standard film from them. Seth Rogen, James Franco and especially up-and-comer, Danny McBride (who is the standout in this film) are all entertaining and clearly skilled in what they do. However this movie feels sloppy from a production standpoint. There are giant plot holes and untouched plot threads and there are times that the improved comedy comes across as a substitute for any actual story that the film is lacking.

‘Pineapple Express’ is a very safe comedy for R-rated standards. It delivers laughs and action with a steady consistency. However, the film falls short when compared to the rest of the Seth Rogen and Apatow gang’s catalogue of films. Seth Rogen is a talented comedic scriptwriter and knowing that he co-wrote this movie makes me disappointed because I (and I’m sure many others) have come to expect a better product from him. I’m sure there are fans of his that will give this movie a free pass and call it the best comedy of the summer or even this year. It’s not. I won’t discount that this is a very funny movie and is one I recommend seeing with friends and in the theater. I’m just worried that this might be the first sign the Seth Rogen as a writer of comedy might be losing his touch and falling back on the on improvised scenes to fill the gaps.

Dan Hacker

danhacker.tumblr.com