Well, what can I say? Now that the dust has settled over the initial uproar on The Interview, what have we learned? It's amazing how a fortuitous turn of events in the real world can turn a so-so movie into a mini-blockbuster.
The Interview, for those of you living under a rock, is about a phenominally successful celebrity tabloid interview show and its host, Dave Skylark (James Franco) and producer Aaron Rappaport (Seth Rogan). They discover that the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, is a big fan and would consent to an interview. Aaron longs to produce something of real substance as his colleagues openly mock him as a sell-out. When the CIA learns of the interview, they enlist the two in an assassination plot. When the times comes, Kim takes Skylark out on the town and the dim-witted Skylark begins to have second thoughts. Hilarity ensues.
Let's address the five hundred pound gorilla in the room first. This movie has been a fascinating glimpse at the mob mentality for me. At first, what seemed to be another raunchy comedy from the minds that brought us The Pineapple Express and This Is The End, The Interview has mushroomed into a cause célèbre for the First Amendment. If Kim Jong Un would have kept his mouth shut, this movie would have probably come and gone in a couple weeks. That's not to say it stinks, far from it. But it is not really the sublime comedy it could have been. It's interesting however, that the public picked up on it with such ferocity without seeing anything more than the trailer. The producers must be thanking their lucky stars for the cyber attacks on Sony and the resultant fallout as they were probably the best incentive to get people to watch it; proving once again the maxim that in show business, there is no such thing as bad press. Never underestimate the stupidity of uninformed people to make dumb decisions and statements. Witness how the RNCC demanded the film be released, Congressional Representatives clamoring for a showing in the Capitol and the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, the most powerful man in the Free World even weighing in saying Sony "made a mistake" in pulling the film. All this over a stupid little stoner movie. It is akin to the Westboro Baptist Church demanding a screening of Monty Python and the Life of Bryan in the middle of Vatican Square or the Mormons demanding a Cheech and Chong film festival in the Tabernacle. Never have I seen such a diverse group of people who, under any other circumstances, would be calling the film sophomoric and juvenile.
But I hear you asking, "Dummy, is it any GOOD?" To that I say...
sorta.
It's not horrible. It has a few funny jokes that did make me laugh out loud, but it is falling into the same trap that comedy keeps doing today. It is frantically waving its hands in the air and yelling, "Look! We're being funny!" In almost every film anymore, from Anchorman to Ted to American Pie, we keep getting served up farce akin to the Three Stooges. And while I do like the occasional dick and fart joke just as much as anyone else, it can be too much. I did enjoy Franco's dim witted Skylark. He's one of the funniest things in the movie. But, this movie could have been sublimely funny with great satire and does occasionally show some smarts. But in the end, it relies too much on sophomoric inanity and people saying "fuck" to be considered any good. It IS funny, but an opportunity was missed. The wackiness of the Hermit Kingdom in real life provides more than enough fodder for very funny jokes, similar to Albert Brooks' satire on Indian/Pakistani relations in his Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World. Ordinary events in these areas are interesting and strange enough to be funny on their own without a scene of Seth Rogan having to shove a beer-can sized missile into his butt.
Okay, that was kind of funny.
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