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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Pineapple Express

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#1 of 1 Posted 8/4/08 11:00 PM

From harveykarten Posts 798 Last Feb-7
To All [Msg # 23337.1 ]

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS

Columbia Pictures
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: C
Directed by: David Gordon Green
Written By: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, story by Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg
Cast: James Franco, Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson, James Remar, Gary Cole, Rosie Perez, Danny McBride, Kevin Corrigan, Craig Robinson, Amber Heard, Ed Begley Jr., Nora Dunn, Bobby Lee
Screened at: AMC Empire, NYC, 8/4/08
Opens: August 6, 2008

The general movie-going public generally knows about celebrity actors like Brad Pitt and famous directors like Steven Spielberg, but are rarely acquainted with scriptwriters and producers. Judd Apatow is an exception. As with Jerry Bruckheimer, who is better-known than the directors he uses, movie buffs generally identify pictures produced by Apatow as being Apatow pictures, putting directors like David Gordon Green in a separate, less holy category. Apatow may not have been the first to vulgarize movies (I say that in a positive way) but nowadays he is extolled for producing such hilarious works as “Superbad,” “Knocked Up,” “Walk Hard,” “The 40 Year-Old Virgin” and “Anchorman.” While “Anchorman” and “Talladega Nights” were comparatively mediocre thanks in part to the unfunny performances of Steve Carrell and Will Ferrell respectively, “Superbad” and “Knocked Up” rate as instant classics.

With “Pineapple Express,” though, the Apatow fraternity, trying to get a little help from his friends, has generated a comparative puff piece . The movie’s principal feature is its Woodstock ambience. Enough weed is smoked by the two stoners to make those of us old enough to know that the sixties are back right now in the midst of all the panic and fear of economic recession and mortgage foreclosures. James Franco is appealing enough in the role of drug-dealer Saul Silver, a laid-back guy whose principal concern is that he has many customers but no real friends until he meets and goes through life-challenging events with Dale Denton (Seth Rogen), a patron who is becoming his best buddy. But the hackneyed action—car chases, idiotic bandits, a high-school senior with a family that curses like the best of the younger set—coupled with insipid, non-sequitur dialogue that goes on seemingly without end for the movie’s nearly two-hour stretch—derails this express shortly after its opening half-hour.

What promises to be a “Knocked-Up”-“Superbad”-style relationship between Dale Denton, a twenty-five-year old court process server, and a young woman seven years his junior, soon degenerates into an almost formless story of male bonding, the ties among disparate people firmed up after the young men are chased by a drug kingpin who knows that one of them had witnessed a murder.

“Pineapple Express” is quite a departure for director David Gordon Green, whose “George Washington”—about how preteens in a small North Carolina town react to a terrible accident—wooed the arthouse crowd with its startling imagery and naturalistic performances. Though Tim Orr’s lens casts a wide net across the big screen at the multiplex, pedestrian panoramas take the place of dreamy cinematography.

As Dale Denton, Seth Rogen serves subpoenas on an array of people, using disguises to wend his way into their confidence while at night he courts Angie (Amber Heard), a cute high-school kid who will doubtless forget about him when she enters college. He buys ultra-strong marijuana from dealer Saul Silver (James Franco), who uses the money, so he says, to keep his “bubby” (grandmother) in a nursing home. Saul, eager to make just one friend out of a customer, is led by Dale into the business of murderous drug dealers because Dale had witnessed a murder of a rival drug lord and company, whose perps track him down by the weed he dropped at the crime scene. Ted Jones (Gary Cole), together with accomplices Budlofsky (Kevin Corrigan), Matheson (Craig Robinson) and corrupt police officer Carol (Rosie Perez) are determined to kill Dale and anyone with whom he has been in contact, Saul’s pal Red (Danny McBride) crosses over into the criminal conspiracy, though Dale hopes to win him back to the cause of the good guys. Throughout the chase, Dale has time to meet his sweetheart’s parents (Ed Begley Jr. and Nora Dunn), who try desperately to evoke laughs from the audience by their own vulgar vocabulary.

Director Green might do well (albeit not financially) to go back to his métier making indie films while the Apatow team would do well to concentrate on satirical romance and leave the crime genre to Quentin Tarantino.

Rated R. 112 minutes. © 2008 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Pineapple Express

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