Drillbit Taylor - Review

Drillbit Taylor is the story if three high school kids abused and beaten up by bullies. You’ve seen that before. What you haven’t seen before is what they decide to do about it, and I’m not just talking about hiring Owen Wilson.

Hiring Owen Wilson though, is step one. Wade (Nate Hartley) is skinny beyond all reason, Ryan (Troy Gentile) is a fat, short kid with a big mouth, and Emmit bears an unfortunate resemblance to a hyper-active hobbit. They’re instant targets for asshole upper classmen, and they have absolutely no hope of defending themselves. Finally sick of being pushed, shoved, punched, humiliated, and stuffed into things (including but not limited to each others’ shirts) they attempt to hire a bodyguard by placing an ad on the internet. They hire the only one they can afford, a guy named Drillbit Taylor who talks a good game, but unknown to them a few hours before was digging around in a dumpster. Drillbit is homeless and he’s only in it to milk enough money out of them for a plane ticket to Canada, where he believes his life will be nothing but roses and lollipops. If nothing else, there’s a good chance the streets he sleeps on will be cleaner.

You may think you have mapped out in your head where Drillbit Taylor goes from there, but Kristofor Brown and Seth Rogen’s script is full of surprises. This is not an Owen Wilson star vehicle, crafted to stick him in situations to be funny with kids. He does that, but Drillbit is more of a secondary character with Wade and Ryan as the movie’s leads. If you’ve seen Superbad, imagine Seth and Evan five years younger and rated PG. Rogen’s influence is obvious in the script, and he uses that same Superbad dynamic to tell a completely different story of friendship, and simple survival.

Luckily Nate Hartley and Troy Gentile are just as good at playing these characters as Michael Cera and Jonah Hill were, and while the script uses that same sort of chemistry the injection of Owen Wilson into it makes everything different. If there’s any problem with the movie it’s that it takes a little too long to get the point, and is at times tempted to spend too much time with Owen instead of the kids, who are the real story here. The setup feels as if it takes an hour, and while I understand that making up a reasonable excuse for a dirty, homeless whino to end up in a high school playing guard may take more explanation than the usual comedy MacGuffin, Drillbit Taylor takes too long to get to the point.

Once things get rolling though, Drillbit gels. We’ve seen so many of these movies about nerds standing up to bullies by now that it’s hard to believe anyone could find anything new in the genre, but Rogen and Brown do, and director Steven Brill and his cast deliver a comedy ass kicking.

Knocked Up - Review

Judd Apatow gets guys. For years men in movies have been cookie cutter presentations of ferocious might or sensitive driveling. In his movies, Apatow brings a different breed of man: one who falls between the stereotypes of the sensitive man and the ubermensch and paints a complete picture of just how complex men can be.

Nowhere is this more true than in Apatow’s latest flick, Knocked Up. The 40-Year Old Virgin director tackles the worst nightmare for the single man – having a one night stand with a girl and then finding out that you’ve knocked her up. It’s a simple enough concept for a story, but thanks to Apatow’s delightfully complex characters and hilariously irreverent approach to the subject matter, Knocked Up runs the chance of being one of the most brilliant comedies of the decade.

Seth Rogen, who was one of The 40-Year Old Virgin’s highlights, takes center stage for Knocked Up, playing the epitome of irresponsibility and young male foolishness. Ben Stone (Rogen) lives in an apartment with four of his friends, smoking pot and insulting each other. His only prospective income is from a website he and his friends are putting together that lists when celebrities get naked in movies. For someone like Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl), a successful up and coming reporter for E! Television, Ben would be the last choice for a boyfriend, let alone someone to have a kid with. Yet after the two hook up after a drunken meeting in a nightclub, that’s exactly the position they find themselves in.

The idea of suddenly and surprisingly being pregnant has been done before in movies like Nine Months so it’s not the most original concept. In fact, the situation is practically cliché fodder for sitcoms. In Apatow’s capable hands, however, the plot becomes a way to shed some light on the male psyche and show that we aren’t all dick and fart jokes… although that certainly makes up part of who we are. Rogen’s character is joined by a smorgasbord of previous Apatow actors, including Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, and Martin Starr, as they make stupid wagers and carry on pointless conversations stoned out of their minds. Before the stoner humor can wear too thin, Ben starts buddying around with Alison’s brother in law, Pete (Paul Rudd), who Apatow uses to reveal some of man’s biggest fears and problems with being married with children.

Considering the nature of Ben’s personality, crude humor is prevalent through the picture, but somehow it’s an endearing trait for the character. Between pranks, like farting on each other’s pillows, there are some poignant moments about how these characters view life; moments audience members will be able to connect with. Rudd’s Pete compares life to an endless episode of “Everybody Loves Raymond” without the humor. Ben goes off on a tirade about how women have been giving birth to babies for centuries without the damn “how to” books out there he’s being harassed for not reading. Apatow shows an absolute mastery for balancing humor and drama, never letting the weight of the story become pervasive, but always keeping the idea in mind that the subject matter is serious. These are people bringing another life into the world after all.

The only thing keeping Knocked Up from becoming an instant classic is how dated the movie already is, even in its release. There are pop culture references every couple of minutes and, as culture changes, those references will become obsolete and some parts of the movie may lose meaning. Apatow did his best to keep those references as up to date as possible, including the characters gong to see Spider-Man 3, which has only been in theaters for a month, but the movie will inevitably be dated. Still, Knocked Up is the strongest movie from Apatow so far and definitely the best comedy this year.