Pineapple Express
From the same team that brought us Superbad, comes Pineapple Express, another hilarious if somewhat uneven outing from Apatow and co. The movie serves as a kind of bizarre hybrid of stoner movie, buddy comedy, and violent action film that makes for one of the most memorable comedies of the summer.
The plot basically consists of lazy process server Dale (Seth Rogen) going on the run with his drug dealer, Saul (James Franco) after witnessing a murder committed by notorious drug lord Ted (Gary Cole). Rogen and Franco make for a very funny comedic team, and share plenty of hilarious dialogue riffs that you’d come to expect from a top-notch Apatow production. Franco in particular impressed me considering he’d never really done much for me in the Spider-man movies, it’s a shame he doesn’t do more comedies. There’s also a bunch of hilarious supporting performances that include Danny McBride as Saul’s drug-dealing buddy, and Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson as two aging hitmen.
One of the film’s strangest contributions is the direction by David Gordon Green. Probably one of the most accomplished indie directors around right now, it’s interesting to see that he decided to make his big-budget debut with a movie that’s so unlike his earlier films. The last half hour or so kind of dissolves into a violent shootout, which kind of feels like something out of a different movie, but I think Green pulls it off pretty well, even if it makes the movie feel like a little bit of a mess, but a nonetheless hilariously entertaining one.
So I probably wouldn’t rate Pineapple Express quite as high as say Superbad or Knocked Up, but it’ll still no doubt end up being one of the funniest movies of the year. Also, this release in addition to this year’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, still makes the Apatow group the premier name in comedy.