Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott work as promoters of Minotaur Energy Drink. They travel from school to school telling kids to stay away from drugs and instead drink their product. Rudd is the spokesman who truly hates his job. Scott is the mascot who loves what he does because its easy and fun. When Rudd realizes he’s been doing it for 10 years with nothing to look forward to in the future he loses it a bit. He half-ass proposes to his girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) and she ends up dumping him. He loses it a bit more and when the Minotaur truck is about to get towed, he tries stealing it back and rams into a school’s front lawn statue. They are sentenced to 30 days in prison, or 150 hours community service at a Big Brother program. David Wain wrote the screenplay along with Rudd and their friend Ken Marino. Wain directed. This is a more serious turn for Wain who usually puts out stuff that barely makes sense. It works. It REALLY works.
I’m a Paul Rudd fan but the guy really knocked it out of the park in this one. Everything that came out of his mouth was comedy gold. You can tell David Wain let them improv a bit and I’m sure there’s many different lines on the cutting room floor for a lot of scenes. Seann William Scott channeled his Stifler character for this one. He’s all about the ladies and just a dirty mouthed mofo. The two together had great chemistry and most of the funnier parts were the two just having conversations with other characters.
Lets talk about the supporting cast. There’s quite a few gems here. Christopher Mintz-Plasse (aka McLovin) was a nerd who is into LARPing, which is live action role playing. He is in a group that acts out medieval wars in full character. A lot of the movie is spent on the “battleground” including some of the final scenes. He plays the nerdy kid perfectly. Bobb’e J. Thompson is a newcomer to the silver screen and he played a foul mouthed little asshole. He had some great lines although he was a tad annoying. But he’s supposed to be. That’s his character so you cant take that away from him. Jane Lynch shines as the head of the Big Brother program called Sturdy Wings. A former druggie who “can’t be BS’d.” She was great in every scene she showed up in. Smaller parts like Joe LoTruglio as a knight in the medieval group who would never break character and talked in old English throughout the film. I laughed every time he was on screen. Ken Jeong was the King. Just his faces alone were hilarious. And I’ll just mention one more because I could go on forever. A.D. Miles was great as a overly excited guy to be working with the Sturdy Wings program. He was oblivious to how nerdy he was and I loved it.
I didn’t really expect this to be as funny as it was. I was hot off of seeing Zack & Miri which came close to being a MADE movie for me. David Wain strayed away from his silly material like Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten and put out a movie that had actual story and heart. Of course the end is predictable but it was nice how it was all tied up in a nice package. Sometimes you don’t need to be shocked in the end. Role Models surprised me and if Zack & Miri was a pubic hair away from being stamped MADE then this flick definitely achieved it.
IMDB – 7.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 75%
Movie Wiseguys – 8/10
