Filth and sentimentality — the yin- yang combo of current guy comedy — entwine in “Role Models” with the naughty bits overpowering the funny.
Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott play Danny and Wheeler, two energy-drink salesmen ordered to do community service as mentors or go to jail.
Before his bad day got worse, Danny was already becoming a drag on girlfriend Beth, played gamely by Elizabeth Banks (“Zack and Miri Make a Porno”), who has become something of the “it” girl of this subgenre of comedy. Danny is the sort of crank customer who harasses baristas about the word “venti.”
Directed by David Wain, “Role Models” is one of those coming-of- age tales in which the protagonists are old enough to know better but don’t — yet. They’re ill-prepared to be the go-to guys of the title.
Enter Ronnie and Augie, two kids in need of Big Brothers. Newcomer Bobb’e J. Thompson is Ronnie, a black child with a jailhouse vocabulary that makes even randy Wheeler blush. The filmmakers’ insistence on the kid’s unrelenting bad-itude is the chief reason for the movie’s R rating. It’s also turns into a lazy movie-long gag.
Last year, Christopher Mintz- Plasse delivered an indelible character in Fogell, the nerd who rechristened himself McLovin in “Superbad.”
Here, the actor with the permanent stuffy nose plays 16-year-old Augie. Danny’s shy-guy ward comes into his own only when he’s involved in a medieval role-playing game that has participants dressed up in fiefdom couture, making alliances and slaying one another in battlefield contests. His mom worries that he’s a freak. As does Danny. And the movie teases nicely everyone’s smug superiority to the dedication of these weekend warriors.
Jane Lynch (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin”) is winning as the ex-coke fiend and ex-felon who runs the Sturdy Wings mentor program and has Danny’s and Wheeler’s numbers.
“Role Models “
Directed by David Wain. Written by Paul Rudd, David Wain, Ken Marino and Timothy Dowling. Photography by Russ T. Alsobrook. Starring Paul Rudd, Seann William Scott, Elizabeth Banks, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb’e J. Thompson, Jane Lynch. Rated R. 99 minutes.
