MOVIE REVIEW: THE INTERVIEW – The Ballsiest Movie of the Year!

Either you may or may not have heard the controversy surrounding the film’s release (I’m pretty sure you were only paying attention to the leaked Spider-Man related e-mails), the concept of The Interview may have attracted you just by the film’s premise (that being making a fool of Kim Jong-Un), that people consider to be controversial. After sitting down to what the film has to offer I would like to say put your pitchforks and torches down because there is nothing controversial about this film at all.

Plot Summary:

Dave Skylark (James Franco) is a TV personality host of Skylark Tonight a tabloid show dedicated to exploiting celebrities’ “dirty secrets”. Skylark’s long-time producer, Aaron Rapport (Seth Rogen) wants to pursue a more serious approach to the show hoping to legitimize both of them as “real journalists”. When they discovered that the leader of North Korea, Kim Jung-Un (Randall Park) is a fan of the show they were both lucky enough to land a one-on-one interview with him. But the CIA has their own agenda as they both assign the two to “take out” the most dangerous dictator of the world.

Mission: Insanity!

The premise of the film is completely absurd from start to finish and the film is simply asking you to “just roll with it”. You are definitely in it for the ride, but the rollercoaster is quite rickety. The film does have that episodic feel to it to the point where it could be some sort of Saturday Night Live special despite its numerous attempts at an epic-feel from the film’s production value. The film does start off with a fresh explosion of all these jokes the film is throwing at you and where the political commentary does come to play but the second act does slow down a bit and does make you look at your watch a few times. If it wasn’t for the third act’s 80s action film throwback the film would lose its mojo and just be seen as comedy writers grasping at straws just to deliver some jokes that are barely chuckle worthy. Are You Not Entertained?! When you read the posters or any promotional material you will recognize that this is by the same creative team who have given us comedies like Pineapple Express and the most recent, This Is The End. Meaning this is a black comedy that is associated with crude and dirty sex, racist, sexist jokes and the occasional sexual oriented humor (also dicks, butts, and farts) but also some sort of satire.

Though the film does deliver a frequency of laughs, there are jokes that do fall flat and does put you in an awkward silence when they do happen. They rely on bringing back the same jokes that was already done already earlier in the film, but they keep varying it by making it longer, making the experience quite tiring. If you can stomach this kind of humor, you will be able to sit through this movie. With that said, be warned for this movie is not for the easily offended, the squeamish, or even people who are not that familiar with America’s pop culture.

CEASEFIRE!

The reason why I am calling for a ceasefire is because that this is just a tasteless black comedy that paints an exaggerated picture on everything about our society today. The film made Kim Jong-Un look like a fool for sure and citizens of North Korea being labeled as “idiots” for believing that he is in fact a God that doesn’t poop or piss. But it was really America that gets the last laugh around here and in fact ridiculed more.

The film does pause for a political commentary towards America’s current state of journalism or what I like to call TMZ “Journalism”. With the kind of news appearing in our feed with headlines such as “*insert celebrity here* picking nose in public” or “*insert celebrity here*’s wardrobe malfunction; the kind of news that people see as “a big deal” when it’s totally not and furthermore how their media portrays people like Kim Jong-Un in black and white when in fact he could be just some misunderstood momma’s boy who enjoys Katy Perry songs. At some point of the film, Kim Jong-Un had this big monologue about North Korea’s downfall in terms of the economy and how it is America’s fault because they do not do what they are set out to do; which does make you pause the video and ask yourself “wait, are you still being crazy? Or are you starting to make some sense here?”

Also, Franco and Rogen do haves these fish-out-of-water roles since they are after all in foreign soil (representing America if I may add) and do make themselves look like fools in a country where they can be shot at for saying or even doing one wrong thing. One could argue that Kim Jong-Un’s regime is no laughing matter considering the fact that numerous of innocent people have died and far worse things other than that under his regime. Much like so that we laugh at the face of Hitler without thinking of the many people who have died in his concentration camps at Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” although the team of Rogen and Goldberg is more on playing it for “shits and giggles” with far more ridiculous tropes.

Bromance Everywhere!

As always, James Franco and Seth Rogen do share brilliant chemistry to one another and perform flawlessly in their comedic roles. But instead of focusing the said relationship throughout the entire runtime of the film it does instead focus on the bro-mance between Franco’s Skylark and Park’s Kim Jong-Un in the film’s second act; and Park does have some excellent material to work with as he not only makes a fool out of North Korea’s supreme leader but also he makes a chilling as one of the most dangerous dictators of our generation as he takes off the kid gloves towards the film’s latter half. Diana Bang and Lizzy Caplan on the other hand do have enough material to work with as well instead of just being there as eye-candy (although they do make fun of that in the movie).

Conclusion:

In the end, The Interview is far from being called as one of the best cinematic satires of our time but the said film is still packed with a fairly good amount of cleverness as it is driven by the film’s ballsy premise and frequently delivered humor. I watched this movie with an open-mind this is after all just a black comedy by the same the guys who made ‘This is the End’ and ‘Pineapple Express’” and after sitting down to a 100-minute long laugh-fest where James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Randall Park are making fools of themselves I was reminded that “this is just a comedy”. And in fact should not pose as some sort of threat to anything. The film’s main mission is simply to make people laugh – and I am here to say; Mission Accomplished.