For them, tying a shoelace is akin to solving a Rubik's cube.
Every
generation loves to explore its own particular addictions. Comedies, dramas, and
action films that nail a habit of the moment have peppered the last half
century. Think of all the alcoholics who hit bottom on the big screen in the
‘50s, of the slackers and drug users who entertained us in the ‘70s, of the
suppliers and buyers of today who have made pot the cash crop of the pop
culture. And of course, sex is good for laughs in any era.
If Pineapple
Express has a godfather, it is certainly director Kevin Smith who introduced a
whole new language to the screen when he made Clerks. Before Mr. Smith had we
ever understood what goes on the minds of a generation completely unengaged with
life on any level, for whom work was a completely alien concept? As the current
chronicler of pot and sex habits, Judd Apatow has made a movie not just about
stoners but about comic violence in the supply chain. His heroes are searching
for contemporary nirvana: perfect pot. With their brains already turning to
mush, these amblers resemble nothing so much as schlubs with defective brain
wiring. For them, tying a shoelace is akin to solving a Rubik’s cube.
Dale (Seth
Rogen) is a process server, or as his friend calls him: a “protest servant” who
stops for his fix at the vomit soaked apartment of his supplier, Saul (James
Franco) who lives in suffocating squalor with no thought for anything but his
entrepreneurial bent toward inventing new and better ways to ingest the
substances of his trade. Saul confesses to wanting to use his talents to become
a civil engineer; Dale wants to be a radio talk show host. Good luck, boys.
After Dale
witnesses a murder on a subpoena search gone bad, he and Saul spend the rest of
the movie on the run and trading betrayals with their new buddy, Red (Danny R.
McBride). From that point on the movie is wrapped in a strange fake violence, an
odd turn of events considering that Apatow characters are rarely mean. And so we
have an action/drug caper that seems out of place until we catch on: the good
guys may get shot through the heart, but they live to inhale another day.
Seth Rogen is
manic here, funny in the sight gags, but laboring hard. James Franco is inspired
as the slowwitted, burned out hulk who takes a long moment to catch on to
whatever has just been said to him. His is a consistently funny rendering of the
unmoored mind. Danny R. McBride comes along mid way and nearly takes the show
home in his pocket. If you are over nineteen and, God forbid, working for a
living, the humor in the culture of weed may elude you. As reluctant as I am to
admit this, there is a distinct possibility that in this case, I am on the wrong
side of the generational divide.
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