Cedar Rapids
(2011, Miguel Arteta, director)
Cedar Rapids just came out on DVD. So let's talk about it, ok?
Ed
Helms stars as Tim Lippe, a naive insurance agent from a small town. Tim enjoys his job, and his girlfriend (and his former grade school teacher) Marcy Vanderhei (Sigourney Weaver, who must've been blackmailed into this). After the incredibly strange death of his co-worker and winner of the prestigious Two Diamond award, Roger Lemke (an all too brief role by master funnyman Thomas Lennon), Tim is sent to the insurance convention in Cedar Rapids. There, he meets up with fellow insurance agents Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock Jr), Joan Ostrowski-Fox (Anne Heche), and Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly). The repressed Tim learns to let his hair down (culminating in a drug fueled beating from Rob Corddry at a house party thrown by local hooker Bree [the always enjoyable Alia Shawkat]'s uncle) and enjoy life from his fellow agents, and learns just how Lemke managed to win the Two Diamonds for several years in a row. Kurtwood Smith appears as Orin Helgesson, the president of the organization giving out the award, and a thorn in Ziegler's side.I'm on the fence with this one. At 87 minutes, you'd expect this to be a sleek jet fighter of a comedy, firing off jokes like sidewinder missiles. Not so much. This is barely even a comedy, in my estimation. There were a few OK jokes, mostly fueled by Tim's naivete or Ziegler's drunken attitude, but nothing concrete. Also, Tim's character clearly has mother issues. I mean, look, the man is dating his former sixth grade teacher, and it screams substitute mother. This could have been explored a whole lot more. Sadly, due to the time constraints, character development and in some cases motivations were left by the wayside. For instance, why is Ziegler even there if he hates Helgesson so much?
On the other hand, all the actors turned in wonderful performances. Anne Heche played someone who skewed a bit younger than her usual characters and made us buy it. Kurtwood Smith has played a sadistic murderer, a hard-ass father, and now an ultra religious insurance man. Disparate roles, and we believe him in every single one of them.
I don't believe I have ever been more on the fence about a movie as I have about this one. I enjoyed it, but I don't think it'll ever become one of my favorite movies. There's just something missing that I can't put my finger on. Maybe it's that parts of the movie felt lazy, like they weren't trying.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Deleted Scenes
Gag Reel
Mike O'Malley – Urban Clogger
Tweaking in the USA
Wedding Belles – Crashing a Lesbian Wedding
Top Notch Commercial
No comments:
Post a Comment