Role Models (**½)

Directed by: David Wain
Starring: Paul Rudd, Sean William Scott, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb’e J. Thompson, Elizabeth Banks, Jane Lynch
Seen: February 8th 2009

**½ Out of ****

Danny (Rudd) and Wheeler (Scott) are travelling salesman for Minotaur energy drink, going from school to school plugging the drink as a good replacement for drug abuse. Danny does not believe in the drink, since it is actually poison (his urine is bright green from drinking Minotaur all day long). Wheeler is the more childlike one of the two, happy to wear a Minotaur suit, squandering his days away with little to no ambition.

Danny’s negative outlook on his job and life in general leads to his girlfriend, Beth (Banks), breaking up with him, and he gets even more negative, making a disgrace of himself and Minotaur with another visit to yet another school. As they exit the school, their Minotaur truck is being towed, and they jump in and try to break loose (more Danny, but Wheeler is there too), causing them to “mount” the school statue of a horse with their truck, and as we’ve seen from trailers, the truck’s public address system continues to blare out the line: “Taste the Beast!”

This causes them to be arrested, and the are given a sentence of 30 days in jail, which Beth manages to negate to 150 hours of community service, at Sturdy Wings. Sturdy Wings is a favourite charity of the judge handling the case, and it serves as a contact centre where neglected children get linked to adults to mentor them. Danny gets Augie Farks (Mintz-Plasse) an adolescent lost in his own fantasy world, where he wears a cape and swears allegiance to the King in a role-playing game by the name of LAIRE. Wheeler gets Ronnie Shields, a hyperactive, foulmouthed little boy obsessed with breasts.

As the new “couples” start getting to know each other, the lack of common interests make things difficult, but they start finding some common grounds soon enough. The humour is very fitting and quite funny, but often quite vulgar, especially where Ronnie is involved. Danny and Wheeler are two great characters and they play off each other with gusto, be it in their conflict or their eventual friendship. I had only one problem with the film, and that is that the film gets lost in LAIRE for too long and too intensely during the last approximately 30 minutes, deflating the potential of the film to some extent. Otherwise, if you’re not too squeamish about bad/course language/humour, this film is a gem.