Without A Paddle
Thursday, August 6; Regal Falmouth #2
* * ¾ (out of 4)
There’s a formula for a joke. There’s a set-up… and a punchline. Really, it’s not a complicated formula, and it’s one that can be messed around with for a vast array of effects, some of which are funny. Eliminating the set-up is not a good experiment to try. Punchline upon punchline is not only hard to pull off, but in a movie, it drops the audience behind, abandoning any kind of sense when going for the chuckle. Without a Paddle tries to do this too often and for too long.
The story involves four childhood friends with big aspirations. After high school, all four goes off to find their futures. Ten years later, they are reunited when Billy (Antony Starr) dies on one of his adventures. Reminiscing in their hometown, suffocating executive Jerry (Matthew Lillard) and all-around slacker Tom (Dax Shepard) decide to resurrect a childhood fantasy – a canoing/camping trip that would lead them to the lost fortune stolen by D.B. Cooper, something Billy always dreamed of. Mousy doctor Dan (Seth Green) is very reluctant, but naturally, the other two talk him into it (otherwise, we’d have no movie). So off they go on a trip through the wilderness, three guys with varying skills, personalities, and insecurities… you get the idea.
Problem number one is that there’s really nothing new here. This is a buddy movie. It doesn’t really stray from that idea, as the three take turns helping each other, reassuring each other, and ragging on each other. The plus side of this is that Shepard, Lillard, and Green definitely look like they’re all having a good time. There’s a definite best-friend chemistry, especially when the larger two are picking on Green. There’s a great ongoing joke about his character being a massive Star Wars geek – funny because it’s true for Green. In fact, none of the guys really seem to be stretching that much, mostly because it’s just not required. Not that I expected it going in, but it still would have been interesting to see the roles mismatched a little bit, just to see what might happen.
The jokes are where this movie falters, though. Somehow, every ridiculous crazy in the world seems to be positioned on this river at the exact moment the three guys decide to go. It leads to a string of events so far-fetched and disconnected from one another that the movie just stops making sense. Things just get dropped in your lap while someone shouts, “ISN’T THAT FUNNY?” and then they move onto the next. When they finally returned to the D.B. Cooper plot, I had pretty much forgotten it existed.
There’s funny stuff, but somehow it all gets lost in the confused mess of a plot. The three leads do have a good time, and they’re all likable sorts; it just seemed like the catchphrase of the movie during writing was, “as if things couldn’t get any weirder.” There’s nothing that really ties it together, but you’ll walk out feeling good about your friendships, if nothing else.
Thursday, August 6; Regal Falmouth #2
* * ¾ (out of 4)
There’s a formula for a joke. There’s a set-up… and a punchline. Really, it’s not a complicated formula, and it’s one that can be messed around with for a vast array of effects, some of which are funny. Eliminating the set-up is not a good experiment to try. Punchline upon punchline is not only hard to pull off, but in a movie, it drops the audience behind, abandoning any kind of sense when going for the chuckle. Without a Paddle tries to do this too often and for too long.
The story involves four childhood friends with big aspirations. After high school, all four goes off to find their futures. Ten years later, they are reunited when Billy (Antony Starr) dies on one of his adventures. Reminiscing in their hometown, suffocating executive Jerry (Matthew Lillard) and all-around slacker Tom (Dax Shepard) decide to resurrect a childhood fantasy – a canoing/camping trip that would lead them to the lost fortune stolen by D.B. Cooper, something Billy always dreamed of. Mousy doctor Dan (Seth Green) is very reluctant, but naturally, the other two talk him into it (otherwise, we’d have no movie). So off they go on a trip through the wilderness, three guys with varying skills, personalities, and insecurities… you get the idea.
Problem number one is that there’s really nothing new here. This is a buddy movie. It doesn’t really stray from that idea, as the three take turns helping each other, reassuring each other, and ragging on each other. The plus side of this is that Shepard, Lillard, and Green definitely look like they’re all having a good time. There’s a definite best-friend chemistry, especially when the larger two are picking on Green. There’s a great ongoing joke about his character being a massive Star Wars geek – funny because it’s true for Green. In fact, none of the guys really seem to be stretching that much, mostly because it’s just not required. Not that I expected it going in, but it still would have been interesting to see the roles mismatched a little bit, just to see what might happen.
The jokes are where this movie falters, though. Somehow, every ridiculous crazy in the world seems to be positioned on this river at the exact moment the three guys decide to go. It leads to a string of events so far-fetched and disconnected from one another that the movie just stops making sense. Things just get dropped in your lap while someone shouts, “ISN’T THAT FUNNY?” and then they move onto the next. When they finally returned to the D.B. Cooper plot, I had pretty much forgotten it existed.
There’s funny stuff, but somehow it all gets lost in the confused mess of a plot. The three leads do have a good time, and they’re all likable sorts; it just seemed like the catchphrase of the movie during writing was, “as if things couldn’t get any weirder.” There’s nothing that really ties it together, but you’ll walk out feeling good about your friendships, if nothing else.
posted by Matt S. at
1:25 AM
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