Pineapple Express Review

Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 08.07.2008

It's not a smooth ride, but it's a damn enjoyable one

Directed by: David Gordon Green
Written by: Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg

Starring:
Seth Rogen - Dale Denton
James Franco - Saul Silver
Amber Heard - Angie Anderson
Rosie Perez - Officer Carol Brazier
Gary Cole - Ted Jones
Craig Robinson - Matheson
Kevin Corrigan - Budlofsky
Danny R. McBride - Red
Ed Begley Jr. - Robert Anderson
Nora Dunn - Shannon Anderson
Bill Hader - Private Greg B. Miller
James Remar - General Brat
Joe Lo Truglio - Mr. Edwards



Running Time: 111 minutes
Rated R for pervasive language, drug use, sexual references and violence

The team of Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen is truly becoming a tour de force in Hollywood. The comedy duo, who have variously produced, written, directed or starred in some of the more successful comedies of the last few years, have truly been on a roll. Having first worked together on Apatow’s short-lived television shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, their teaming together on such films as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Drillbit Taylor, and more have created a new playing field in Hollywood. Playing on the “geek is the new cool” motif, they’ve created a landscape where people like Rogen, Jonah Hill and Jason Segal, far from the Hollywood norm of leading men, can carry a successful movie. It’s also allowed Rogen and Apatow, whose commercial successes have far outnumbered their few failures, a wealth of power in the movie-making industry. They’ve utilized that power to gain a fair amount of freedom in the creation of their films, imbuing them with diverse elements that make them very difficult to define. Their latest film, Pineapple Express, is a testament to both that power and that freedom, as a film best described as a “stoner action buddy comedy” would have had problems passing the test of most studios long enough to get greenlit. At the hands of Apatow and Rogen, though, they not only managed to get it greenlit, but got a 3,000+ screen release and a strong media campaign behind it. Released into theaters today, it’s the latest film of this summer touted as the best chance to knock The Dark Knight from its number one perch.

The film stars Rogen as Dale, a process server who happens to be a pretty major pot-head as well. He delivers subpoenas under a constant state of stoner haze, and is dating Angela (Heard), a high school student. His dealer Saul (Franco), a long-haired slacker who sits around in pajama bottoms all day and watches old sitcoms, has come across a source of the seemingly greatest strain of marijuana known to man, Pineapple Express, and Dale comes away with some of the high quality herb. That night, while smoking a joint of the stuff outside the house he’s supposed to deliver a subpoena to, he witnesses local drug lord Ted (Cole), his target, and corrupt cop Carol Brazier (Perez) kill a police officer. Dale freaks out and drives off very loudly, attracting Ted and Brazier’s attention. Unfortunately for Dale, he dropped his joint out the window and the Pineapple Express just happens to come from Ted, who has only sold it to Saul. Ted sends a couple of incompetent hit men (Robinson and Corrigan) to wipe Saul and Dale out while they enlist the aid of Saul’s dealer, Red (McBride). The situation quickly goes from bad to worse, and before they know it, the trio has inadvertently started up a gang war that they have to survive.

To bring Pineapple Express to life, Apatow, Rogen, and co-writer Evan Goldberg, who also serve as producers, brought David Gordon Green on board to direct. It’s certainly an odd choice, given that Green’s past films are small, Southern Gothic coming-of-age tales like Snow Angels and All the Real Girls. It’s hardly the kind of resume one would think of for a film like this, but it proves to be an excellent choice, as Green handles the divergent moods of the film with ease and comfort. The script, as written by Goldberg and Rogen, is pretty ludicrous and delves into heavy doses off of-the-wall violence, their usual raunchy talk, and characterizations that could make Saul and especially Dale unlikable, if not for Green’s steady hand. He gives the film the exact sort of smart idiocy that it needed to excel, combining Dale and Saul’s go-nowhere existences and loser dropout-style attitudes with enough intellect that they come off more like less cartoonish versions of Harold and Kumar, as opposed to the Beavis and Butthead vibe they could have had. For example, he manages to make twenty-something Dale’s relationship with teenage Angela, a situation that could just come off as creepy and gross, more of a sweet and sour statement about Dale’s inability to grow up. That’s a feat that less-talented directors would have stumbled on and it would have badly hurt the film, whereas here it really enhances it and makes for some pretty funny scenes.

It doesn’t hurt this that the acting is spot-on. Seth Rogen is an actor who is really coming into his own, seeming more comfortable as the focus of a film with each one he carries. He manages to give Dale an earnest likability, even when he’s doing things you want to hit him for. It’s a less mature variation on his accidental father in Knocked Up, but given more complexity and played with more finesse. It helps a lot that he has great chemistry with James Franco, an exceptionally talented actor and gifted comic who plays Saul to perfection. Franco’s performance dredges up memories of Sean Penn’s Spicolli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but ups the ante by making him more three-dimensional then the iconic stoner. Saul is inherently sympathetic not just because he’s a fun guy to be around, but because he’s a nice guy who cares about his nursing home-bound grandmother and thinks of Dale as a friend. As on-screen comedy duos go, there hasn’t been a pair this perfectly matched in quite some time, and it carries the movie through very nicely.

The supporting roles are also nicely done. Gary Cole, an excellent actor in almost anything he’s in, exudes the proper menace as drug kingpin Ted. His partner in crime for this one, Rosie Perez, is in top form as the corrupt cop, shedding her usual big-mouth, big-attitude persona for a more toned down but far more effective portrayal. Perez has largely disappeared from the Hollywood landscape for the last several years, and it’s refreshing to see the talented actress return. Several of the usual Apatow clan make their presence known in this film, including Bill Hader in a brief spot at the beginning as an Army Private and Craig Robinson as one of the hit men. It’s Danny McBride, however, who gets the biggest spot to shine as Red, and he does so. McBride, best known to date as the scheming homeless friend of Drillbit Taylor, plays Red as so utterly clueless and idiotically gleeful that you can’t help but love him, even when you can’t figure out who he’s selling out next.

The film, much like many of Apatow and Rogen’s efforts, wallows in stupidity and raunch throughout. There’s a level of violence that’s unprecedented from their previous films, an insane level of pot smoked (not surprisingly, of course), and the situation gets more and more insane as time goes on. By the time Saul is charging into a gun fight screaming N.W.A. lyrics, any sort of realism has been tossed right out the window like a used joint. However, it’s all done with such a charm and sticks so effortlessly to the “play it cool, man” stoner vibe that none of it is eye-rolling, and the laughs, when they come, are strong and whole-hearted. There are some sequences that don’t really work quite as intended, of course, and the film loses a bit of its charm toward the end, as if we’re finally coming down from the high. But the ride there, including a car chase scene that is one of the funniest and most enjoyable in a while, is a hell of a lot of fun, and if this is the kind of work Rogen and Apatow are becoming capable of, I just might start to become more of a fan of theirs.

The 411: Judd Apatow has stated he got the idea of Pineapple Express while watching True Romance and thinking how he wished the movie had followed the exploits of Brad Pitt's stoner character. This film achieves that idea in spades, with a strong script and fine performances from all involved under David Gorden Green's steady hand. While the film's content and premise certainly aren't for everyone—my mother would have a heart attack when Franco says the weed smells like "God's vagina"—the earnest likability of the characters and the deft merging of several genres creates a ride that carries almost completely through the film without complaints, and makes this the comedy of the summer so far.

Final Score:  8.0   [ Very Good ]