The Pineapple Express Review [3]

Posted by Erik Luers on 08.16.2008

The high wears off pretty fast.....

The Pineapple Express is a bunch of ideas blended together in an attempt to create something somewhat amusing. So much is thrown at the audience, including random stereotypes and vastly different tones, that the film never succeeds at being something new or invigorating. Part buddy action-comedy, part squishy gore fest, director David Gordon Green (an art house favorite) doesn't so much helm the picture as he does direct the traffic on set, as if the Apatow crew (Seth Rogan, Evan Goldberg, and Judd himself) were the real men calling the shots, reigning Green in whenever he strayed too far from the basic formula. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I will admit that the film turned me off from the very beginning as an old 1930s prologue (old, you see, because it's in black and white) starts the film, "explaining" the origins of the pineapple express aka super weed. We see Saturday Night Live cast member Bill Hader high off the marijuana, giving off a Californian stoner's vernacular, using words like "dude" and graphically pantomiming himself giving oral sex. That technique has been used a lot in these films; the gayer the better, the Apatow crew seems to be saying. This is sort of odd behavior for 1930s Americana, although to be fair, authenticity doesn't seem to be a desired trait for Green or co-writers Rogen and Goldberg. When we meet our lead protagonist, Dale Denton (a phony "movie name" if I ever heard one), he is getting high on the job, driving to his next destination to hand out a subpoena. Denton goes that extra mile in that he dresses up as a killjoy to employ a sense of irony onto his unsuspecting victims. In one instance, he dresses up as a surgeon in order to reach an unsuspecting doctor. Talk about great hospital security. When we see that Denton has a girlfriend still in high school, things go from stupid to creepy. Are we supposed to really care about the success of this couple? Honestly, where are these girl's parents? Ah, yet we do meet them later on and they go on to function more as punchlines than responsible human beings.

I may not own Scene It: Cheech and Chong edition (with free bong included), but I do know that one fundamental rule of comedy is to be funny. Apparently, James Franco got the memo. As Saul, Dale's constantly adrift drug dealer, Franco is the most successful cast member in getting laughs out of the viewer, perhaps be approaches his character with a sense of sincerity. He's not merely dropping random, inane references (as Dale and the unbearable Red do), but is evoking his character's true essence; he is a pothead who doesn't seem to know that he is one. He's not in on the joke, hence the concept of the joke being upheld. He is the high point of the film, pun so oh very intended.

Along the way, Dale will witness a murder take place, setting off a chain of events in which he and Saul will have to constantly fear for their lives (think North by Northwest by Purple Haze). Let the shenanigans begin. The shenanigans consist of over the top acting courtesy of Rosie Perez (always foolishly dressed in her police uniform) and Gary Cole, who readers may remember from Office Space (no, he's not the "stapler" guy). A group of gangsters appear who are simply referred to as "the Asians"; they are also the piece's antagonists, along with a homosexual black men (Craig Robinson) and a cold hearted killer (a wasted Kevin Corrigan). As far as bad guys go, these fools do less damage than the ones we're supposed to be rooting for. Just wait till you see one of the bad men get squished by a car and have his foot blown off. Is one supposed to laugh? Is the real antagonist of this film the obvious: plain old common sense?

A minor spoiler here proposed as a question: what happens to Angie and her parents? Are they still hiding out in a hotel somewhere? There's only so many soft-core porn films one can order before packing up and heading back home. The screenplay conveniently forgets about them as if we weren't supposed to notice. Also, what to make of that tasteless scene in which our two heroes tastelessly sell pot to minors? Is that comical? You know, sometimes I wonder if moviegoers go to a comedy so eager to laugh that they do so instinctively, and not because of the material that is presented to them.

Oh, how I wonder.

The 411: The grass is always greener on the other side: despite a few laughs, the film falls flat. The people at work here are talented, but they waste their skills on dull, tired jokes, disguised as politically incorrect, edgy material. If you ever wondered what the guy from Knocked Up would do if he witnessed a murder (while stoned), this may satisfy your expectations. For everyone else, it may just be time to put down the pipe.

Final Score:  5.0   [ Not So Good ]