Stale Popcorn

I was neither too kind in my review nor too impressed by my viewing experience of Hot Rod the first time I saw it. It was a film, due to my love of Saturday Night Live, that I was really looking forward to seeing only to end up walking away enormously disappointed. I wrote a review of it that came across as the written equivalent of reluctantly kicking a puppy, which you can check out here, and I even received the almighty number of ONE correspondence from a reader here at Stale Popcorn who said I was “humourless” and that Hot Rod would “become a cult classic one day”.

I had a bit of a bad day recently regarding my health so spent the day wrapped up on the sofa, working through a pile of DVD screeners and films in my Sky Plus box. I don’t really know why but after a few hours I decided to go pull something from my shelf that I could fall asleep to and selected the film that back in 2007 I referred to as follows: “… There’s a funny film to be made out of this concept but unfortunately this is not it! It takes the notion of a “stupid” comedy and makes it too stupid, without their being any really strong gags that could earn that all important word-of-mouth factor ”

And you know what? I was brought up under my grandfather’s tutelage to believe that ‘it takes a big man to admit he’s wrong’ so let me be that ‘big man’ here and now.

I don’t know whether it was my “poorly” frame of mind when I re-watched Hot Rod a second time but, for a film I was only watching so that I could fall asleep to it, I started to laugh. Anyone who read my initial review should well know that “laughing” at Hot Rod is no easy feat. I don’t mean reluctantly, shamefully laugh either. I’m talking about repeated, genuine giggles. Jokes that I thought were predictable, lazy or just downright rubbish started to show this warped, off-kilter approach that I came to really like.

I started to laugh with such a degree of regularity that I sat up and got really invested in the flick in a manner that completely passed me by first time round. I started to look at this film in a different light and I now urge you to do the same: Don’t think of this as a glossy addition to the halls of failed SNL movies. Look at it in the same light as Be Kind Rewind or Son Of Rambow; a bunch of wannabes decide to get together and make their own low-brow version of a Will Ferrell comedy, if you will. 

Andy Samberg still struggles with the lead and he fails to get laughs in moments where someone like Ferrell, Seth Rogen, Jack Black or Jason Bateman would have knocked them out of the park, so to speak, but he’s relatively likeable and the supporting cast ably supports him. The only thing that doesn’t change from my original review is my reflection on just how wonderful Ian McShane and Sissy Spacek are as Samberg’s parents.

There’s still hugely weak notes; namely Isla Fisher’s weak “love interest” and a ratio of hit and miss gaggery that fluctuates dangerous. The thing is though, I’ve come to realise that this film is a “grower” and that second time out there’s a whole host of jokes and visual puns that you ‘get’ better and that, looking back on my original review, I have to say that I was perhaps a little too harsh on Hot Rod.

I think to flame someone for not regarding it as a “cult classic” is also a little harsh, mind you, because I do still believe that it’ll be a long, long, long cold day in Hell before the film accomplishes that mindset in even the most forgiving of film fans – but, considering just how much it grew on me second time round (so much so that it drove me to re-review the film!) I wouldn’t argue against it becoming a guilty cult favourite in time. “Classic”? Let’s not be too hasty.

We’ll save that label for when I (probably) review this film a third time!

Posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 11:50 am under DVD Reviews (R2) by Gazz.
Tags:DVD Review R2

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