Pineapple Express ~~ & a bit

24th September 2008

Ok. This is going to be quick. This is a nice little ‘stoner’ movie. Not as good as any of the ‘Cheech and Chong’ films of the 1970’s but still, I’m amazed that drugs are allowed such coverage even today. This is a mainstream movie and kids are going to see it. Nevertheless, it’s an entertaining if incredibly ‘light’ piece of entertainment.

Story goes – man meets with friendly local drug dealer, gets stoned on rare but potent Pineapple Express strain of grass, witnesses a murder amongst the warring drug barons, is identified and goes on the run with aforementioned buddy drug dealer. Seth Rogan is the stoner and James Franco is the dealer. The greatest fun comes from the pair padding around their living room talking utter crap. The nuances of a drug den are pretty spot on. (Don’t ask – this is what I imagine.) Their increasingly paranoid, indulgent chit-chat is very funny. Obsessing over the computer printer and such like. Very silly stuff but that’s what drugs do to your brain. So I am told. For me, it goes a bit wrong when the violence breaks out with the ensuing drug barons etc. It wasn’t necessary. I liked seeing the two bone-heads wrestle with the notion of being lost in the woods or evading the cops. You might have seen the trailer where Franco attempts to kick the windscreen out of his car but instead puts his foot through the glass and gets it stuck. That’s as good as it gets really.

Seth Rogan co-wrote this little piece and perhaps I’m granting him too much intelligence when I say I’m sure it didn’t take long to jot down the entire piece and should therefore be able to produce far better material. Marked down for effort Roth. Franco, on the other hand, made the film for me. Sure he’s cute but I’ve never seen any one grin their entire way through a part. I did end up wondering whether he was being passed a doobie or two on set. No, I am sure he’s just that good an actor. The character who I took an enormous amount of time to warm up to was the double crossing character of Red played by Danny R McBride. The film comes to life a bit more when he’s on screen. Sure it’s because he spends most of it getting beaten up with various household objects. Nothing is as funny as a guy getting hit with his own possessions.

It all becomes rather farcical and by the end I’d almost given up hope. It was neither a comedy nor an action/adventure nor a stoner movie but in the tradition of Cheech and Chong, it was a little bit of everything. I wish they’d have dropped the action sequences. I didn’t need the hard-core violence at all. But I suppose the film makers thought a film about stoners wasn’t that interesting without it? If that’s the case, they should have tried harder with the original storyline and script. It descended into a boy’s own bash ‘em up and for me, what had started off as a reasonably gentle ‘bud-dy’ movie lapsed into an ultra violent non-com ass kick – a real waste of the practically sewn up loser ‘n laughs beginning of the film. Shame on you boys.