¿Will Farell
habla español? ¡Si, si! At least, he does in this gentle parody of every cliché you might associate with Mexico on film, particularly as presented in old westerns. Ferrell is the older, and dumber, according to his father, of two brothers. He is a gentle man, and a gentleman, but when the younger sibling (Diego Luna) brings home his young fiancée (Genesis Rodriguez, of Man on a Ledge), he suspects they are mixed up with the drug trade. Or maybe he’s just jealous.
That’s about all the plot worth mentioning, other than that a corrupt cop, a wealthy narco (Gael García Bernal), and a racist gringo DEA agent (Nick Offerman) have roles. It’s a coherent story, but mostly there to provide a framework for small bits that are more likely to elicit chuckles and smiles than loud laughs. Par for the course are the deliberately bad visual effects (very fake blood, shots of toy cars standing in for the real thing, and a stuffed white tiger that talks to the hero in a sort of vision). Directed and written, respectively, by Matt Piedmont and Andrew Steele, who both worked on Saturday Night Live and HBO’s Funny or Die Presents, it’s less obviously farcical than the movies Ferrell’s made with business partner Adam McKay (Step Brother, Talladega Nights, Anchorman), yet even sillier at times. I had the feeling it was an idea Quentin Tarantino would have thought of and farmed out, like something made from one of the fake trailers he put in Grindhouse. That is to say, it’s a pretty thin movie, but at just 90 minutes it doesn’t wear out its welcome. And how can you dislike a movie that turns Procul Harum’s psychedelic classic “A Whiter Shade of Pale” into a Spanish-language wedding song?
That’s about all the plot worth mentioning, other than that a corrupt cop, a wealthy narco (Gael García Bernal), and a racist gringo DEA agent (Nick Offerman) have roles. It’s a coherent story, but mostly there to provide a framework for small bits that are more likely to elicit chuckles and smiles than loud laughs. Par for the course are the deliberately bad visual effects (very fake blood, shots of toy cars standing in for the real thing, and a stuffed white tiger that talks to the hero in a sort of vision). Directed and written, respectively, by Matt Piedmont and Andrew Steele, who both worked on Saturday Night Live and HBO’s Funny or Die Presents, it’s less obviously farcical than the movies Ferrell’s made with business partner Adam McKay (Step Brother, Talladega Nights, Anchorman), yet even sillier at times. I had the feeling it was an idea Quentin Tarantino would have thought of and farmed out, like something made from one of the fake trailers he put in Grindhouse. That is to say, it’s a pretty thin movie, but at just 90 minutes it doesn’t wear out its welcome. And how can you dislike a movie that turns Procul Harum’s psychedelic classic “A Whiter Shade of Pale” into a Spanish-language wedding song?
viewed 2/27/12 at Rave UPenn [PFS screening] and reviewed 2/28/12
No comments:
Post a Comment