Pineapple Express Review
By Karen Dahlstrom
High in Plain Sight
When we last checked in with Team Apatow, moronic man-children were learning and growing. This week, they give us "Pineapple Express". Here, the boys are still learning and growing, but this time they're doing it while baked out of their minds and running from drug dealers. Written by "
Superbad" scribes Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, "Pineapple Express" is a heady concoction of stoner buddy comedy and classic action film.
Rogen plays Dale Denton, a schlubby lunkhead who makes his living as a process server while smoking inordinate amounts of weed. Despite the unsavory nature of his job and a high school-aged girlfriend, Dale seems quite content with his lot in life. On a visit to his perpetually stoned dealer, Saul (James Franco), Dale is introduced to a rare and wondrous strain of pot called (you guessed it) Pineapple Express. Later, on a routine job, Dale witnesses the murder of a hitman by suburban drug lord Ted Jones (Gary Cole) and crooked cop, Carol (Rosie Perez). In his horror, he inadvertently crashes into Carol's squad car and drops the tell-tale joint.
In a drug-fueled panic, Dale and Saul attempt to escape before Ted can trace the joint back to Saul (the only Pineapple Express dealer in the area). Hot on their trail are Ted's murderous goons, Budlofsky (Kevin Corrigan, channeling Christopher Walken) and Matheson (Craig Robinson of "The Office"). Stoned out of their tree, Dale and Saul are possibly the least equipped guys to handle this sort of crisis. Alternately paranoid or semi-catatonic, they make one bad decision after another. Hindered, then ultimately aided by Saul's connection, Red (Danny McBride), the three make an unholy, hapless and downright hilarious trinity.
As Dale, Rogen has perfected his charming everyloser character — the chronic underachiever with a joint in one hand and an impossibly hot girl in the other. Why his girlfriend, Angie (Amber Heard), ever hooked up with Dale is a mystery not only to himself, but to her irate parents (played with relish by Ed Begley, Jr. and Nora Dunn). Franco reclaims his stoner king crown (from his days as Daniel on "Freaks and Geeks") as Saul, the addled but amiable weed dealer. At home alone most days, Saul is surrounded by customers, but few friends. Completing the trio is Danny McBride as Red, who appears to be Hollywood's reigning be-mulleted dirtbag. With movies such as "The Foot Fist Way" and the upcoming "Tropic Thunder" under his belt, McBride has elevated redneck bravado to a kind of art form.
At some point during the film, the tone abruptly shifts from buddy comedy with slapstick violence to full-bore "
Die Hard"-level action flick. It's a jarring transition, as the bullets fly and the blood spatters. Director David Gordon Green is more well-known for his moody independent films ("George Washington", "
Snow Angels") than for comedy or action. Other than a rollicking, all-out brawl between Dale, Saul and Red, the action sequences give us nothing new to chew on. Whether due to inexperience or as an intentional "homage", Green seems to just recreate scenes from '80s action films (complete with the generically "asian" rival drug gang) rather than innovate. Green's forte is character work — which is what saves "Pineapple Express" from becoming just another silly action comedy.
As in "Superbad", most of the film's interest comes in the interaction between the main characters. Dale and Saul's varying levels of inebriation make for some hilarious dialogue and painfully funny and highly inappropriate missteps (such as the misguided decision to sell pot to school kids in order to raise money for bus fare). Though their relationship is initially perfunctory, the inevitable Apatow-brand learning/growing takes over, leaving Dale and Saul to put the "buddy" (and the "bud") back into the buddy movie. As fans of "Freaks and Geeks" are well aware, Rogen and Franco have a winning chemistry. And with the addition of McBride, they manage to keep "Express" from running off the rails.
