Mar 4, 2017

Pineapple Express

Saw Pineapple Express, an amiable stoner comedy about a subpoena-serving stoner dude who witnesses a murder. Unfortunately he drops a joint of some rare strain of weed at the scene and is thereby tracked down by the marijuana gangsters. The film is a shaggy dog sort of thriller, getting to the bottom of the weed-gangsters and their turf war. The protagonists are just sort of untouchably floating through all of this, hilariously under-reacting or just lamely reacting to the action-film cliches happening to them. A guy's foot is blown off by a shotgun "Ew, gross!" They're being manhandled by goons "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Why do you hate me?" All of that was pretty reliably amusing for me.

Another source of comedy they use is completely sincere expressions of homosexual romantic attraction. They say I love you to each other with increasing frequency as the film progresses. The relationship of the two male protagonists is more centrally important to the film than the relationship of the protagonist to his girlfriend. I think we the audience are meant to laugh at this but within the film's universe, these guys are being completely sincere. I don't know what to make of this half-ironic-half-sincere bromantic joking. I feel like the comedy is seeing emotional vulnerability from straight males. It's not important in the film, it just struck me.

The film is just a comedy. It's got no point and is an inoffensive buddy of a movie, a bro. The protagonist is the arrested development kind of guy, sleazily dating a highschooler and vaguely discontent with his life, aspiring to someday be a radio DJ. He's played by Seth Rogan who is the human equivalent of a hug, so it's not too gross. All in good taste. I didn't think it was howlingly funny, but it was a pleasant waste of an afternoon.

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