I can remember three times in recent memory when I saw a movie with an audience that laughed so loudly, and so often, that they drowned out half the jokes. Two were last summer, when I saw Knocked Up and Superbad on packed opening weekends. The third was last night, when I found myself in an advance screening of Pineapple Express, laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes.
Pineapple Express follows in Superbad’s grand tradition of sending two guys on a long journey with little purpose but great adventure. Both were written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, and Rogen takes a starring role in this one, as boring working man Dale Denton. He’s not exactly friends with his pot dealer Saul (James Franco), but the two have to cooperate anyway when Dale witnesses a murder.
This much plot you know from the trailers, and I can’t say much more here. But Pineapple Express is much less of a buddy comedy than an action movie, with several kickass fight scenes and more explosions than you ever thought you’d see Seth Rogen get involved in. It’s also not a huge stoner movie, though stoners will probably benefit from a lot of in-jokes.
Rogen and Franco are both hysterical in the lead roles, but the real find of the movie is Danny McBride, who plays a friend named Red whose motivations are never quite what they seem. McBride is the star of The Foot Fist Way, an indie comedy being heavily promoted by the guys behind Funny or Die (namely, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay). If Foot Fist is a hit, McBride may be well known by the time Pineapple Express comes out, but watching all I could think was “Who is this guy?”
There were a lot of people scratching their heads when David Gordon Green, known mostly for indies like All the Real Girls and the recent Snow Angels, signed on to direct Pineapple Express. The movie benefits greatly from him, though, with artful framing, cleverly constructed montages and an overall 70s feel that makes the whole thing feel like a throwback to some stoner-action movie-buddy comedy genre hybrid that never really existed.
Most of all, Pineapple Express is just damn funny, with slapstick humor, one-liners, sight gags, absurdity and stoner jokes mixing together to make one guy sitting a few row behind me laugh so hard he was actually hooting. I can’t tell you much else, but what more do you really need to know?
