Download Role Models Full Movie

Comedy being notoriously subjective, I can't just up and say, "Role Models is really funny and for that reason you should go see it," even though it is really funny, and you should go see it. Fortunately, there is a lazy yardstick I can use: if you, like me, think that Paul Rudd is one of the modern cinema's great under-appreciated funnymen, then you, like me, will enjoy Role Models, although not to such an outlandish degree that you should get your hopes up for the best comedy of the year, or something like that.

Reteaming Rudd with David Wain, director of Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten, the new film is about two thirtysomething coworkers, misanthrope Danny (Rudd) and cheerful horndog Wheeler (Seann William Scott), whose job driving from school to school selling kids on a bright green energy drink named Minotaur is driving Danny into an intractable depression. Throw in his break-up from his girlfriend of seven years, Beth (Elizabeth Banks), and it's not so hard to believe that he might do something a little bit drastic - the sort of drastic that results in the choice between 30 days in jail or 150 hours of community service.

The community service that the two men are assigned is an outreach program teaming troubled, lonely kids and grown-up mentors called Sturdy Wings, founded by the deranged ex-crackhead Gayle Sweeny (Jane Lynch). Recognising that Danny and Wheeler haven't any choice in the matter, she assigns them two of the hardest cases in her books: Wheeler is teamed up with the foul-mouthed, sex-obsessed Ronnie (Bobb'e J. Thompson), while Danny is given to the much-too-old Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a LARP enthusiast who doesn't understand why people make such a deal about having friends in real life. If you expect this to end with all four boys learning lessons about being men, and forming bonds that will last forever, you get a bright, shiny cookie.

As the first unabashedly mainstream project for indie-comedy god Wain (whose work also includes the cult-beloved TV shows The State, Stella and the current Wainy Days), Role Models could easily have been a great deal worse than it is. Modern history is littered with the bodies of aggressively quirky comic minds whose personalities can't make the transition to audience-friendly work (something that Paul Rudd knows a bit about, in fact), but it seems to be a reasonably comfortable fit for Wain - Role Models is hardly as creative as his best work, but it's at least a significant improvement over his last feature, the muddled sketch-comedy The Ten.

The best part about the film is its small scale: in an environment where most mainstream comedies strain to make their jokes as zany and crazy as possible, with outlandish slapstick and impossible malapropisms scattered across the landscape like trenches in the Somme, Role Models has the unspeakable bravery to base almost all of its comedy on things that could actually happen. There are broad swipes here and there, but in the main, this is an appealingly human-sized comedy: it is entirely reasonable that Danny would act like he does in the opening scenes and that this would lead to his altercation which kick-starts the film; it is more than reasonable that two men with no criminal records would be assigned to a Big Brother program for what it is ultimately a victimless crime; and most of the things that happen with the kids are within the realm of believability, though they are undoubtedly contrived. The one character who just wouldn't work in the real world is happily played by Jane Lynch, a crackerjack comic performer who is never ever going to get the recognition she deserves, and who brings to her character in this film a twitchy intensity that makes her seem even scarier as a friend to children than she would have as a drug addict.

(By the way, I'm not trying to argue that realistic comedy is always better than zany comedy, of course, but it's certainly better than zany comedy done as badly as it has been for most of this decade).

As long as the film confines itself to character-based comedy, it does pretty well for itself: Rudd is a delight as always, and Seann William Scott continues his gentle trajectory from irritating goofball to genuinely effective comic actor, and their chemistry together is quite good, as is their timing. The problems creep in when the writers - including Wain and Rudd, and fellow State alum Ken Marino - try to do something with that edgy sex comedy that everyone's talking about (and which worked so well for Wain in Wet Hot American Summer. Acknowledging that tastes vary, and everyone in the theater where I saw the film seemed to love this stuff, the fratty humor just plain didn't work for me in this case, particularly in the character of Ronnie, who seems to have been written according to the theory that watching a 9-year-old black boy say "boobies" is ipso facto hilarious. It's through no fault of the young actors, both of whom do well and seem personally charismatic, that Ronnie and Augie aren't that interesting or appealing as characters - they're saddled with the plottiest bits of the film when they aren't given its worst gags.

Besides that, Wain proves himself to be a better director of comedy than a director of movies. Except in Wet Hot, with its note-perfect evocation of early-'80s sex comedies, he's never seemed to attend all that much to how his films look, nor really how they're paced, and Role Models has plenty of slow stretches, although atypically it's not "a slow stretch in the middle" or "at the end" - more like a whole lot of scenes that go on half again too long, or shouldn't be there in the first place, all through the movie. Though (perhaps surprisingly) the film earns its tied-up-with-a-bow ending, it takes a few too many false crises to get us there.

Even if it's no masterpiece, though, Role Models is funny - and that's huge for a movie in this day and age. Looking at its carefully unchallenging framework, I find myself wondering if this is a case of a film that's no worse than it needs to be - Wain's sensibility watered down is obviously less interesting than Wain unfettered, but this is still a far cry from the worst of modern R-rated comedy. It's hard to dislike, and that means by default that it's hard to love, but I can't be too hard on something that made me laugh.

To begin downloading Role Model and countless other new and old movies, simply link here now.

Seann is a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Here's what he had to tell us:

MoviesOnline: How horrible was it wearing that Minotaur suit? Was it hot as hell?

SEANN: It was horrible. I was like "I guess I'll do anything for a laugh." I just kept thinking "Guys, is this funny because it sucks." They're like "Oh, it's funny. It's funny." I'm like "No, it's not. I'm a clown." Then the KISS outfit and then we had a scene where I wear a chipmunk outfit at Chipmunk Charlies and it's not in the movie. So, I'm naked, Chipmunk Charlie, Minotaur and KISS. I'm just a glorified clown in this movie.

MoviesOnline: Which one was the worst?

SEANN: The Minotaur was terrible. It was gross and it smelled terrible and all my own smell too so even more embarrassing, "Wow, this is me. I smell this bad."

MoviesOnline: Could you see where you were going?

SEANN: With that mask on, no. Because when they put the mask on I went..[breathy sounds]. I felt like Darth Vader. I was like [more breathy sounds] "I can't breathe in here. Shoot the film, shoot the film." Then, at a certain point I was like "Guys, this could be anybody. You can't even tell it's me." "Oh, the body language." "Oh, really? It's doing this [he indicates sticking his arms and legs out to the side]? People are going to know it's me? Come on."

MoviesOnline: Who did you look up to as a kid? Who was your role model?

SEANN: My dad. My dad was my role model. He was great. I'm gonna say my dad and my oldest brother who was one of the guys who started "The Onion" newspaper. He was a really great mentor for me. All my brothers too... I don't want my other brothers to read this and be like "What the? I was your mentor" so we'll just leave it with my dad. It's a safer answer.

MoviesOnline: Do you think you would be a good mentor to a child?

SEANN: Yeah. You would probably be surprised with that answer, but yeah. My nephew is like eight and I could totally be his dad I think, although when his dad's away, I'll have him watch "American Pie" movies and "Road Trip" and stuff and "Old School." I have him watch all the crazy stuff because I feel like it's awesome to see him say "Uncle Seann!" I'm like "Com'on, you're going to be hearing this in like five years. This is just to get you started now."

MoviesOnline: Then you must have had a great rapport with little Bobb'e (Bobb'e J. Thompson)?

SEANN: Yeah, well, he's a little bit crazier than my nephew. We had a great rapport. I ended up kind of being his big brother in a way because he's got such a brilliant mind. He's a stand-up comedian. He performed at The Apollo or Children's Apollo or something like that. Is there a Children's Apollo? Somebody said that to me. I know he's done some stand-up. In the beginning, the first couple of days, I can't imagine doing a film at that age. I would be so stressed out, so freaked out. He reminded me of an Eddie Murphy, just how spontaneous he is. The energy he had was kind of like Eddie Murphy in "Delirious." He had that same mouth too. I'm like "Dude, you're making me seem like a saint." But, after a couple of days, he let his guard down a little bit. He got more comfortable. He showed himself to be this sweet, eleven-year-old kid....who swore all the time.

MoviesOnline: Jane was saying if he felt like doing his lines, he'd do it. Otherwise, it was like "Whatever."

SEANN: Yeah. It was true. I've never worked with a child before and that's so true, animals and children. Never again. No. With Bobb'e it's because he has that mind, even at that young age, he has the ability and the instinct to just want to riff which I love doing but being a comedian at that age, he wants to say whatever is on his mind and, a lot of stuff is fantastic. Sometimes, he had to stick to the script. But whatever he did, I watch the movie now and he steals the movie. He's so funny. Even if he wasn't as awesome as he is, just hearing a little kid drop F-bombs is fantastic to me. To me, it's the whole reason to see the movie.

To begin downloading Role Models and countless other new and old movies, link here now.