Movies I Want Everyone to See: Role Models

This Post was Originally Published on the Defunct Site "Fogs' Movie Reviews" in the Fall of 2013.

I just bought tickets for three different Concerts in February for the Kiss End of the Road Tour, so this seemed like an easy pick to return to this month.

This is an easy one this week. There is no historical value, cinema language, or back story intrigue to make this a movie you should see. It is just funny as all get out with wiseacre talk, inappropriate life lessons and a cast of funny people who are just trying to entertain you for a couple of hours. If you are a fan of films like "I Love You Man" or "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" then you don't want to miss this treat starring the slacker gods Sean William Scott and Paul Rudd. This is dumb comedy done in a smart way and it has so many quotable lines that it could easily displace Caddyshack on the list of guy movies that guys will quote incessantly.


The premise is basic. Two guys who work together get into a legal tangle and have to do some community service as a way of avoiding jail time. They get sent over to "Sturdy Wings" a mentoring organization along the lines of Big Brothers. Here they are matched with a couple of youngsters and the bonding and hilarity ensue.

I'm not sure why Sean William Scott gets the crap I hear flung at him. He has made a bunch of films that are entertaining and while he is not really a thespian per se, he is usually cast very well and "Role Models" may very well be his perfect role. As Wheeler, the less ambitious and more socially satisfied of the two, he espouses wisdom like a college student, after midnight on a three hour buzz from the hot box he got out of on his way to the frat party.  While there are some drug references, this is not a stoner film like the Seth Rogan comedies of the past ten years. Wheeler is an amiable goof who probably will not get far in life but who deserves every friend he has.

Typical Wheeler Philosophy:
Wheeler: Never stare at the boobies, kid. Once you get caught, the game's over.
Ronnie Shields: But how?
Wheeler: It's called training. You know, being aware without drawing attention. You don't think I've noticed those 34 C's in the camouflage tank top setting up a tent directly to the left of us? Or how about those twin cannons hiking up a mountain ridge 50 yards due west? Or the ridge itself? Round mounds of grass shaped like...
Ronnie Shields: Boobies!
Wheeler: Don't look over there. Look here. Focus... You'll get it.



Wheeler's counterpart is Danny, the spokesperson for an energy drink who despises his job. Danny is at the point in life where he is afraid he is settling and he does not like it. Paul Rudd plays him as if he has a chip on his shoulder and he uses it to justify being a douche to everyone around him.  Obviously, the events in the film are designed to be a wake up call for him to adjust his attitude. Thankfully, before that happens we get an exchange like this:

Danny: Large black coffee.
Barista: Do you mean a venti?
Danny: No, I mean a large.
Barista: Venti is large.
Danny: No, venti is twenty. Large is large. In fact, tall is large and grande is Spanish for large. Venti is the only one that doesn't mean large. It's also the only one that's Italian. Congratulations, you're stupid in three languages.


Sturdy Wings is founded and run by addict turned do-gooder Gayle Sweeny, played by the acerbic Jane Lynch. She is in the movie for about ten minutes and steals every scene she appears in. Her lines are some of the most foul and most quotable and of course the most funny. Before she was drained of all her charm by "Glee" she made this movie a comic gem by her presence.  If "Big Bird" was a human, he'd look and move like Gayle (of course that language would never come out of his mouth).

The two kids that Danny and Wheeler get matched up with are nightmares themselves. Ronnie, is a pre teen firecracker with the mouth of a sailor. In a battle of wits with Wheeler, the kid wins most of the time. Bobb'e J. Thompson has personality to spare and he plays up the part so well that I wondered how they got away with the dialogue he has to speak. Maybe I'm a little sheltered but if I met a nine year old kid with a mouth like that, I'd be looking for child protective services to take him out of the environment he is being raised in.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse is so familiar a face in movies now a days, that it is hard to remember what a sensation he was in "Superbad". This was his next role, playing the awkward Augie. A socially maladjusted teen, maybe a little old for the program but who needs the kind of attention a good pal would bring. You get a sense of what kind of fun friend he could be when he encourages Danny to use the phrase "Whispering Eye".  I won't spoil it for you if you have not yet seen this.

A lot happens in the film as the two losers try to meet their hours of public service but don't quite get how this service works. There is admittedly a cliche heartwarming plot line that takes up the second act and will have few surprises but a bucket load of laughs. Sometimes the last part of a movie is a letdown for viewers. How can the characters live up to the potential that has been created in the first two thirds of the movie. "Role Models" answers that question by bringing in the greatest plot twist a classic rock fan like me could want. A special guest appearance by "Kiss". OK, not really but  in spirit at least.



It's too complicated to explain so just let the joy of the moment of arrival wash over you. I cheered and laughed and decided right there that this was the greatest movie ever made! I don't really think so but ask me at the right time and I could commit to that opinion again.
My guess is that most of you have seen the movie so this is a reminder that it should be experienced on a regular basis. It is full of odd ball characters and incredibly funny snark. If you have never watched it, get ready for a blast. If you get to Wheeler's explanation of Paul Stanley's lyrics of "Love Gun" and you don't laugh, turn off the movie and good luck to you. Everybody else should get ready to "Rock and Roll all Night and Part of Every day." (sic)


Richard Kirkham is a lifelong movie enthusiast from Southern California. While embracing all genres of film making, he is especially moved to write about and share his memories of movies from his formative years, the glorious 1970s. His personal blog, featuring current film reviews as well as his Summers of the 1970s movie project, can be found at Kirkham A Movie A Day.

The Sisters Brothers

A sure fire top ten on my list at the end of the year.

The Old Man and the Gun

I would have sworn this was the shortest of the videos, it appears to be the longest.

First Man

Since I am behind on my film posts, I decided to use a video format to get three of these done today. Here is the first. It appears to be a little out of focus, sorry.

Last Two Lambcasts: The Haunting #448 and Halloween #449

A double dose of mutton for you. 

Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer

If you are looking for a horror film to disturb, frighten and repel you, skip the "Halloween" sequel and go see this docudrama. With a script taken frequently from actual transcripts at trial and notes from the investigators, you will still have a hard time believing the horror that really took place in a Philadelphia Women's Clinic for more than thirty years. What is equally horrifying is the indifference of public health officials and the media because the crimes that took place were connected to the real third rail of American Politics, abortion.

This film may be dismissed by some as a polemic about the abortion issue but it is played straight and honestly with the facts of the case. Pro-Choice advocates should be equally outraged at the crimes against largely impoverished minority women by a doctor who had little respect for them. The hubris of Kermit Gosnell is indeed the most frightening aspect of the film. This is a man who made choices in care motivated by greed, convergence and sloth. Character actor Earl Billings gets the biggest part of his career and he imbues it with a detached sense of whimsy of all things.  Gosnell is sanguine about the whole episode. He believes he has done nothing wrong and like Nero, he plays while all around him is burning down. Billings comes across in the interview segments as a friendly family doctor, but there is a true madness there for how blind he makes Gosnell seem to the disgusting environment that he occupies.

Ann McElhinney and  Phelim McAleer are documentary film makers known for taking a contrary position on a number of subjects. This film is not a documentary but it is a non-fictional docudrama which sheds light on an event which says as much about political correctness as it does about abortion. The fact that the story of Kermit Gosnell and his trial was largely ignored by the media is shown in an incredibly accurate and despairing moment in the film. The prosecutors in the case, expecting to be swarmed by journalists as the trial begins are in for a surprise. The fact that it took political gadfly's on-line to get the story any traction is a shame. The difficulty of getting this film to theaters is also something of a problem.

Director Nick Searcy, an actor who appeared in two of last year's best picture nominees, has directed only two features. His first was made twenty years ago and has been largely unseen, this is his second directorial effort.  With a small budget and a cast of second tier Hollywood talent, he makes the film feel much like a feature thriller in the first half. The film has a vibe like "Zodiac" because of the subject matter, but it lacks some of the cinematic touches that would make it a Hollywood entertainment. It is certainly more than one of those re-enactment shows you might see on the true crime channels. The movie is competent but without visual embellishments and script dialogue that is quotable. Searchy also plays the defense attorney at the trial and he does put on a vigorous defense of his client that the jury ultimately sees through. There is a choice to not reveal a photograph that was taken of an actual victim, and that seems to be the right choice to make the movie feel more even handed. It will be seen as a gimmick by critics of the film, but sparing the audience of the trauma revealed at the trial makes me feel relieved. The subject matter is serious and a real life photo in a movie like this might just be too exploitative.

Although I described them as second tier, the actors in this film are not bad, they just are not stars. Dean Cain plays a real life Philadelphia detective who stumbles on to this case while pursuing a drug investigation. Sarah Jane Morris an accomplished television actress is the soccer mom prosecutor who believes in a woman's right to choose but also in the law. These two play off of each other well but this is not a film that is about performance as much as it is about the culture. That society wants to look away from this subject is understandable. Opponents of abortion find horror in it's mere existence and the advocates of choice don't want to deal with the messy details that come along with those choices. Gosnell is one of those failings of the system that makes everyone look bad. In trying to distance the actions of Kermit Gosnell from the normal methods of operation in a woman's clinic, the prosecutor  examines another doctor on those practices. The defense attorney is actually the one who on cross examination, reveals some pretty damning insights about the whole business.

The film may be horrifying but it is not an entertainment for the season. It is a serious look at a truly evil person who disturbingly enough lived among us.  On the surface he comes across as an eccentric physician who claims to be there to help poor women. As we crawl under that surface we see what he really is, a monster.

Halloween (2018)

Jamie Lee Curtis and I are the same age. I wish I could say that I was in as good shape as she is. I'm also not the badass her character Laurie Strode has become in this update of the "Halloween" film franchise. This movie removes the history of the other nine films, and treats the original as cannon and everything else as a figment of the audiences imagination. I can go with that, but there are a couple of other films that I might want to save before I make this entry the cannon for the future.

So forty years after the original events, Laurie has become a PTSD victim, who has passed on her paranoia to a second generation, or at least she tried to. In a plot lifted from "Terminator 2" , Laurie has been found to be an unfit mother and had her daughter taken from her when the girl was only 12. That daughter grew up to be Judy Greer, a forty something Mom with a daughter of her own in her senior year of high school. There are some pretty obvious beats being set up for the story. The goody goody grand daughter and her friends strolling through the town replicate the early segments of the original "Halloween". Dr. Loomis has been replaced with Dr. Sartain, an apprentice of Loomis. And of course it is Halloween. So expect murders and costumes and people trapped in houses to be filling the screen for most of the time this film is running.

The idea of the traumatic family dynamic is an interesting one but it is under-developed. We don't really know how the relationship between the characters works. Sometimes it seems like the grand daughter and Laurie are strangers to one another and at other times they have a deep bond. Greer's character seems to be indifferent to her Mother's warnings, despite having been raised with the specter of "The Shape" looming over her through her whole childhood. It's not clear if she is a chip off the old badass block or a snowflake who has turned a blind eye to the evil in the world because her Mom is a bit nuts.  Jamie Lee is the stoic guardian angel who seems to have been plotting to kill Michael for forty years, but she loses her composure when she most needs it to warn the people she cares so much about. The inconsistencies in the characters undermine the story way more than it can take. 

There is a turn about three quarters of the way into the movie that is so out of left field as to be silly. I guess it was supposed to be set up by the opening visit to the mental hospital by two journalists. When the one reporter waves Michael's Captain Kirk mask at him, all the other prisoners react while Micheal remains motionless and as silent as ever. It is as if Michael's evil is contagious, and long term exposure will result in an infection of the same. The only redeeming aspect of this plot thread is that the new villain gets a gruesome comeuppance that looks like it is mostly practical make up effects.

As flawed as the film is, there are several successful aspects to it.  I'd say the best sequence is a replay of the scenario in the original film. A babysitter, with a romantic partner while on the job, has to confront the masked killer. There was some nice chemistry between the babysitter, her charge and even the boyfriend. It plays out with the characters fulfilling their destiny but with as much self respect as you could hope for ever one involved. Another very effective sequence involves Phillip Seymour Hoffman's illegitimate son, confronting Michael in the shadow of a light connected to a motion detector. The staging of those moments was pretty tense and there is a solid payoff.  I also liked the two cops keeping watch over Laurie Strode's compound. The tone was humorous in a natural way and did not detract from the horror around it.

Before we get to a couple of comments about the climax, let me rant about a couple of other things that I saw as problems. The whole relationship between the grand daughter and her boy friend is filled with some deep secret that never plays out. He ends up discarded as a character and Laurie's grand daughter Allison, ends up as the new scream queen without much more personal development. The plot thread from the opening with the two journalists does get played out, but in such a contrived situation as to be irritating, in spite of the well put together attack that finishes that part of the story.

Two shots in the film will immediately be recognized as reverse call backs to the original film. Allison sees a brief vision out of her classroom window, just as grandma had forty years earlier. That shot also foreshadows a moment in the climax that was the most enjoyable moment in the film. Replicating the double take that Donald Pleasence has at the end of the movie was the fan service moment that most worked for me. I did not see it coming, although I probably should have, but when it arrived, I laughed and smiled.