Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Movie review: Pineapple Express

By Alex Bentley

The Pineapple Express

Lazy stoner Dale Denton has only one reason to visit his equally lazy dealer Saul Silver: to purchase weed, specifically, a rare new strain called Pineapple Express. But when Dale becomes the only witness to a murder by a crooked cop and the city's most dangerous drug lord, he panics and dumps his roach of Pineapple Express at the scene. Dale now has another reason to visit Saul: to find out if the weed is so rare that it can be traced back to him. And it is. As Dale and Saul run for their lives, they quickly discover that they're not suffering from weed-fueled paranoia; incredibly, the bad guys really are hot on their trail and trying to figure out the fastest way to kill them both. All aboard the Pineapple Express.

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on The Pineapple Express

Not much should be expected out of a movie that is named after the type of marijuana one of its main characters sells. If the guys writing it were high enough to come up with that concept, then the audience shouldn’t really demand that the film make any sense, right?

And yet, there’s still something more than a little disappointing about Pineapple Express, the latest R-rated comedy from producer Judd Apatow. Seth Rogen stars as Dale Denton, a no-account schlub who spends his days as a process server, smoking tons of weed in between deliveries. His girlfriend, inexplicably, is Angie (Amber Heard), a high schooler seven years younger (and about 10 times hotter) than him. Dale’s drug dealer is Saul (James Franco), possibly the only person lazier than Dale.

Dude, where can I score some more weed?

Soon after picking up a new batch from Saul, one of Dale's deliveries happens to be Saul’s pot supplier, Ted Jones (Gary Cole). Unfortunately for Dale, he pulls up to the house just as Ted and a cop (Rosie Perez) murder a man in cold blood. Dale, still high as a kite, makes about the least subtle getaway ever, slamming into cars and dropping his joint onto the street. The rest of the film is spent following Dale and Saul as they attempt to elude Ted and the hit men he sends after them.

The whole film plays as if the writers (Rogen and Evan Goldberg) hashed out each plot twist while smoking the titular product, which could be the point. Random detours into the woods, car chases, and more gunfire and explosions than a lot of action films give Pineapple Express a feel of Rogen and Goldberg saying to the other, “Dude, wouldn’t it be cool if we did this?”

I can't believe they're letting us blow stuff up!

The only problem with that “thinking” is that it never gives the audience a hook to hold onto. The trademark of most Apatow movies is the inherent sweetness of its main characters. While there’s nothing specifically unlikable about Dale and Saul, neither one of them ever garners much goodwill, either. Rogen and Goldberg also seem to think that a never-ending series of people getting hurt in various ways is a solid substitute for actual jokes. While that can be funny the first few times (or even the first 30 times), it’s not really something on which a great comedy is based.

Regrettably, that’s pretty much all there is to Pineapple Express – jokes involving weed and its effects and/or bodily mayhem. There’s nothing clever or innovative about the premise – Cheech and Chong made pretty much the same film 30 years ago. There are a handful of laugh-out-loud moments sprinkled throughout the film, but not nearly enough to redeem it. Not sure why director David Gordon Green (Snow Angels), a man previously known for writing and directing intense dramas, chose this as his first comedy project, but even he can’t make it more than it is.

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