By Brian Marder
Story
Rod Kimble (
Andy Samberg) is what Napoleon Dynamite might’ve been had he fantasized about
Jackass instead of ligers: a gawky half-wit with a penchant for stunts he can’t come close to pulling off. But when his stepfather (
Ian McShane) falls gravely ill and can’t afford a heart transplant, it’s just the motivation Rod needs to go that extra mile, er, bus. See, Rod has decided to try and jump across 15 buses in hopes of raising money for his stepdad’s operation—but only to get him healthy enough for Rod to beat him fair and square in a fight (which will make more sense if you see the movie). So Rod assembles his “crew”—stepbrother/videographer/team manager Kevin (
Jorma Taccone); mechanic Dave (
Bill Hader); ramp builder Rico (
Danny McBride); and newest member Denise (
Isla Fisher), on whom Rod has a massive crush—to help whip him into shape. He hits an emotional roadblock when he learns that his real father did not, in fact, die testing a stunt for Evel Knievel, but ultimately nothing can keep Rod down—except gravity.
Acting
Usually,
Saturday Night Live stars have to leave the show before they can headline a movie—like
Adam Sandler, whose brain
Samberg would clearly love to pick (and transplant into his own). But
Samberg was wise to allow himself something, in
SNL, to fall back on, because his Digital Shorts talent (i.e. the
Justin Timberlake collabo “D**k in a Box”) doesn’t exactly translate into feature-length humor. There are undeniably hilarious random freak-outs, even to the un-stoned, and in a few years he might be the Next Great
SNL retiree, but the jokes become one-note very quickly. So, comedic voice of Generation Y(ouTube)? Not quite. He might not even be the current voice of
SNL, if costar
Hader has any say.
Hader is choosing all the right movies and roles in them (see this month’s
Superbad—seriously!), and his inane humor is much more sustainable than
Samberg’s. Simply looking at
Hader is cause for laughter, which is half the battle between these neo-
SNLers. Unlike
Hader,
Wedding Crashers star
Fisher is terribly miscast. Not only does
Fisher look more mature (to put it nicely) than her character is supposed to be, but she’s much funnier than the stupid-funny of
Hot Rod, in which she, of all people, is the proverbial “straight man.” And in a double-take-worthy role, revered actress
Sissy Spacek graces the screen as Rod’s mom, a la
Kathy Bates in
Sandler’s
The Waterboy.
Direction
You can take the dudes out of
SNL, but you can’t take the
SNL out of the dudes. And the foursome of
SNL contributors—
Samberg,
Taccone,
Hader and
Akiva Schaffer, who directs—along with screenwriter
Pam Brady (
Team America) demonstrate why
SNL is no longer much to laugh at, as they replicate the show’s stupid humor under the guise of fresh humor (“fresh” because, you see,
Andy Samberg is youngish and YouTube-cool). After about a quarter of the way in, it becomes clear that
Schaffer is satisfied with virtually no storyline, resting the movie’s fate in the purportedly funny hands of
Samberg. Granted, the first quarter holds promise that the movie will take a
Talladega Nights-like turn into a mock story, but it remains nothing more than the silliness of
Napoleon Dynamite (only not nearly as offbeat) combined with the failed stunts of
Jackass (only not nearly as dangerous to the star). The
Napoleonic resemblance continues with the obscure ‘80s soundtrack, which is about the funniest thing
Hot Rod has going for itself.