Review: Role Models

Role Models (2008)
Despite its entirely misleading advertising campaign, Role Models is definitely not a kid's movie. Full of crude humor, vulgar sex references, and other usual antics of the modern male comedy, this is certainly not something you want to take your kids to see.

However, it is not fully an adult comedy, either. The film spends a lot of time showing strange kids being, well, kids. In a lot of ways, much of the movie is a study of the strange dramatics behind Live Action Role-playing. It also makes sure to teach us "valuable lessons." Because of this, it can often feel like a kid's movie, even though I would never want a child of mine to see a movie where the adult mentor teaches the ten-year-old kid how best to evaluate "boobies" and takes him to a raging party to spend some valuable time together.

Of course, I would be taking it too seriously if I actually took offense to these events. It is, after all, a silly comedy and in a lot of ways it succeeds that way. However, the movie overall is embodied in one of the young boys (played by the oft-obnoxious Bobb'e J. Thompson): it looks like a kid, it has the emotional depth of a kid, but it has the mouth of a teenage boy.

Role Models suffers from not taking one genre and sticking to it. But, overall, it was much funnier than the trailers would lead you (or, at least me) to believe. Also, Rudd and William Scott (usually a part of the support cast), hold the film delightfully well as its leads. Definitely a surprising film (even if only because I had low expectations to begin with) and worth seeing for any Rudd-enthusiast.

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