THE INTERVIEW
DIRECTORS: Evan Goldeberg and Seth Rogen
CAST: James Franco, Seth Rogen, Lizzy Kaplan, Randall Park, Diane Bang
CLASSIFICATION: 16 LV
RUNNING TIME: 113 minutes
RATING: 2 stars (out of 5)
Theresa Smith
SILLY and repetitive, The Interview has nothing to do with freedom of speech. The controversy around the ostensibly accidental marketing campaign is well out of proportion with what is essentially a frivolous little movie of poop jokes.
Seth Rogen is co-director and acts as Aaron Rapaport, tv producer to Dave Skylark (Franco) who hosts a popular celebrity tabloid show. Rogen is earnest while Franco is wholly committed to his fake smile and Larry King-ish ways. They have a great chemistry and most of the laughs are rooted in their interaction.
Had they stuck to the Dave Skylark tv show’s need to feed the machine with even more inane interviews, culminating in them bagging the supreme leader of North Korea, this would have been funny. Between them Rogen and Franco could have roped in all their friends for some truly weird moments.
Skylark and Rapaport’s attempts to legitimise themselves as serious journalists is what makes this film fall apart. The CIA instruct them to assassinate the North Korean leader and what was shaping up as some light silliness falls apart as The Interview tries to shoehorn itself into a spoof spy movie.
Rogen doesn’t have a definitive idea of what he wants to say – Americans are stupid, celebrity culture is hollow, North Koreans are sheltered and don’t really know what is going on in their own backyard, or maybe something else – so he flails about throwing jokes at everything.
The spoof of America’s appetite for celebrity-driven drivel is couched in the language of “shart” jokes and un-pc gags. So, the potentially clever message flies over the head of people attracted to poop humour. And, anyone looking for clever comment on the insanity of the media’s obsession with celebrity culture won’t get it in an action comedy starring the guys who gave us Pineapple Express.
Then again, anyone who can successfully create a stoner action flick – a juxtaposition of irreconcilable genres if ever there was one – should be able to handle this, a rude spoof that makes fun of its very audience. While the plot casts North Korea in the worst light possible – setting Kim Jong-Un (Park) up as a celebrity-obsessed megalomaniac with Daddy issues – it says even worse things about the American audience’s obsession with consuming ever-more titillating soundbytes about people famous for being famous and their policy of interfering in matters not their own.
But, alas, this is simply frathouse humour on a huge budget.
If you liked The Neighbours or This is the End, you will like this.