Role Models

Why isn't Paul Rudd a bigger star? He obviously has the looks so let's gloss over the fact that I find him attractive in a way that makes me slightly uncomfortable and focus on the fact that after Anchorman, 40 Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up he still isn't star billing, being under the guy who played Stiffler, on a movie where he co-wrote the script and plays one of the two main characters. Whatever the reason Role Models will hopefully get him that bit of attention he's so obviously missing.

The premise is simple, couple of guys have to serve community service or face jail after one is dumped and goes a little crazy when his car is towed. that service is acting as "big brothers" for kids who struggle to fit in to society. One gets the A.D.D. kid who's clearly had too many blue Smarties and watched Boyz 'N' The Hood a few too many times while the other gets the nerd who's obsessed with fantasy role playing games. Queue the two of them learning life lessons from their charges while teaching them some of their own and much happiness.

It's no shock to report that Role Models is exactly what you'd expect it to be having seen the trailer, a crude, funny, uplifting little film that doesn't bother to steer clear of cliched story telling because it doesn't have to. You see it's confident enough in the comic material and its players that it doesn't need to. Adding to Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott, on the best form he's shown since American Pie, you have McLovin himself Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Elizabeth Banks, another Virgin veteran and also fresh off the back of Zack And Miri Make A Porno, and the mercurial Jane Lynch, who has now become a fixture in comedy beyond Christopher Guest films, as the kids charity operator who used to eat cocaine for breakfast. Add to that a brilliant turn from the barely into his second decade Bobb'e J. Thompson as the obnoxious hyperactive Ronnie and the plot's obvious elements just drift away.

On top of the performances is the sharp dialogue. Although Rudd has been a fixture of the Apatow players for a while now, most of Role Models feels lie it has come from the page, with only the dinner scene feeling like it's being improvised. Just revel in the many innuendos scattered throughout the script seemingly at will. You'll probably miss quite a few from laughing at something else. Also marvel at Ronnie deciding that Danny is Ben Affleck purely because he is white, or Ronnie and Wheeler bonding over Kiss' Love Gun, "the gun's his cock" which then leads to a lesson in how to look at boobs. Even more material is mined from the fantasy role play world that Augie is obsessed with, be it the ridiculous speech patterns or the costumes that have clearly taken too much time to make, including a truly phenomenal visual gag involving a homemade Centaur costume.

In fact the role playing provides the movie with its best extended set piece in the shape of their Battle Royale. It's probably going to be one of the best staged battles you'll see all year, it's just that everyone's kidding on. It's a seriously inspired scene that elevates Role Models above many of the other comedy films of recent months. Even the camping trip, a cliche in itself, is hilarious thanks to many visual and verbal jokes. Especially brilliant is Danny's scary story for the kids that I won't ruin here.

Role Models at first looks to be yet another crude, middle-aged guys learn about life comedy and those first perceptions are actually correct. What allows it to rise above all the others is its obsession with the smaller details, such as dialogue and visual gags, that means that the glaring cliches of the script aren't a problem. Hell it's so funny and clever at times that you can even allow it the obligatory happy ending. Best of all are the performances, which are universally excellent. The fact then that Paul Rudd both wrote and acts in this says it all. The man deserves to be bigger and hopefully Role Models will elevate him. And yes, he is damn handsome.