3 out of 4 stars Directed by Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen
Starring: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Lizzy Caplan, Randall Park, Diana Bang, Timothy Simons, Reese Alexander, James Yi, Paul Bae
Rated R for pervasive language, crude and sexual humor, nudity, some drug use and bloody violence.
112 minutes
Verdict: It's a bit slow at the start and will certainly disappoint those looking for a satire on the level of DR. STRANGELOVE, but once the action gets to North Korea, it's a furiously funny and juvenile farce that's a lot of fun.
YOU MAY ENJOY THE INTERVIEW IF YOU LIKED:
THIS IS THE END (2013)
TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE (2004)
SUPERBAD (2007)
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (2008)
NEIGHBORS (2014)
Against the odds, a goofy, scatological comedy aimed at college-age males became one of, if not the, most important films of the year. Not necessarily the best, mind you, but the most important; a legitimate historical landmark, and there are running jokes about buttholes. Why can't history-making always be this fun?
THE INTERVIEW is the second film directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the writing team behind the legitimately great 2007 comedy SUPERBAD, as well as PINEAPPLE EXPRESS and their own gut-busting directorial debut, THIS IS THE END. Written with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart's co-executive producer, Dan Sterling, Rogen's and Goldberg's latest, strictly speaking as a movie, is an imperfect but wildly funny and fun action-comedy.
In addition to writing, directing and producing, Rogen stars as Aaron Rapaport, producer of a celebrity news and gossip show called Skylark Tonight, hosted by his flamboyant and dimwitted longtime friend, Dave Skylark (frequent Rogen collaborator, James Franco). After 1,000 episodes, Aaron feels unfulfilled with the vapid direction in which his journalism career has taken him, so when it's discovered that the show has a big fan in the North Korean communist dictator Kim Jong-un (Randall Park), Aaron arranges an exclusive interview. Soon after, Aaron and Dave are contacted by Agent Lacey (Lizzy Caplan) on behalf of the CIA, who wants to enlist them in assassinating Kim as part of a coup d'état, to which they reluctantly agree. Once they get to North Korea though, the task proves far more difficult than initially planned, as Dave is drawn in by Kim's charms and Aaron falls for Kim's top aide, Sook (Diana Bang).
THE INTERVIEW doesn't have the rapid-fire laugh-out-loud moments of THIS IS THE END, or the heart of SUPERBAD, and it starts fairly slow, although there are some good laughs from Skylark Tonight in interviews with celebrities playing fictionalized versions of themselves. Franco hams it up really big, and a lot of it falls flat, while Rogen plays the straight man, but once they get to North Korea, the movie really hits its stride. Randall Park plays the real-life dictator as sheepish and insecure, on the surface a kindred spirit to the typical man-children of Rogen/Goldberg comedies, but also believably menacing. He's the whole package, at once likable and loathsome.
THE INTERVIEW is more a political farce than a satire, because even while it doesn't beat around he bush about things like propaganda, U.S. foreign relations and celebrity journalism, it's not particularly sharp or interested in insight. It's a movie content with aggressively lampooning a real-life dirt-bag, and using blunt instruments like scatological humor and knowingly overwrought execution to do it, while making the basics known to a demographic that might not be so well-informed about the subject. As far as low-brow humor goes though, there are many good laughs to be had, many of the juvenile gross-out variety, just the way I like them.
Those drawn in by the controversy will likely be unimpressed by sophomoric comedy and wonder what all the fuss was about, but it's fun, dumb and even though it doesn't pack much of a political bite, it has admirable nerve as a comedy.
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