If this movie was pitched to me, I would have absolutely loved it. Take a well known comedian, put him in an RV with a fake wife and fake kids, all acting like a family to smuggle an enormous amount of pot across the Mexican border? Genius. Truly. But at no point was I excited for this movie. Really, why should I be? Jason Sudeikis is funny enough, I suppose, but I hardly peg him as unbelievably a father. Jennifer Aniston is so bland, I see no stretch for her, no reason to think she'll make me laugh or wow me.
When I hear a movie like this, the only way it works in my mind is to get a group of completely unknown actors together or get a group of actors well known for a certain character type to play their roles in this. For example, let's drop this cast and let me make my own so you can see what I mean. I'd cast Seth Rogan as the father, a well known pot enthusiast, the last character I'd pegg for parenthood in Hollywood (isn't that the point of Knocked-Up?). The mother I'd cast as a well known, very talented actress, someone like Meryl Streep or Helen Mirren, someone jarring next to Seth Rogan. I'd cast a well known actor in a TV or film high school role as the son, let the joke be that he looks very obviously not like a teenager, someone like Andrew Garfield. And for the daughter I'd cast someone like Vanessa Ann Hudgens out of Spring Breakers, an obvious whore who is forced to behave herself.
The thing is, these ideas are sort of there, but dumbed down. Instead of the extreme, Jennifer Aniston plays a hardly-characterized stripper. But strippers can be mothers too. Emma Roberts plays a street-hardened loner forced to become the pretty sister. But when I look at her, all I see is her in that nickelodeon show, I don't see funny. It just misses a level of humor that could be so easily achieved in casting.
As for the scripting, very little humor is brought from anywhere but either obvious jokes and puns or real low brow humor. Of all the places humor could have gone in this, we're only making sex and penis jokes? I don't know. Maybe this movie just simply wasn't made for me.
But that's not to say that this movie is particularly bad. No, it had it's moments of inspiration and it certainly had me chuckle once or twice. My one big criticism was it's length. It was an hour and fifty minutes or so, but it dragged badly. They're over the border rather quickly, and then it becomes a series of hiccups and silly problems in their journey. I suppose it sort of works, but when the problem is built up as the fear that they will be inspected at the border, it becomes tedious after we see them do it rather effortlessly.
It's unfortunate for an idea like this to be lost from poor casting and forgettable humor. I would have loved to see this be an enormous critical and financial success. But considering the casting, I think the film will pull in enough, without much else to show for it.
Rank - 2/5
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