[Movie Review] HOT ROD
I’m a big fan of Saturday Night Live. Well, mainly the really early stuff and then intermittently throughout the later years (i.e. Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Will Ferrell – of course!) but thanks to it going back into syndication on ITV4 here in the UK, I’ve been able to start getting back into it. One of the things that I immediately noticed was how it’s really become , finally, a “woman’s show” now with the best work on it at present being done by the likes of Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph and Kirsten Wiig. If I’d had to predict who would be using the show as a springboard into movies (as is the way) out of the current crop then I would have picked any of those ladies. Andy Samberg wouldn’t have been one of my top picks. In fact, he wouldn’t have been in my top five!
That’s not to say he’s not a funny guy – but he’s the ‘safe’ dude, in my opinion. He’s the guy that turns up to help push a scene along, not to drive it like say Jason Serdakis or Bill Hader. So the fact that he’s got his own Lorne Michaels (and therefore SNL) produced movie, Hot Rod, doesn’t inspire that much confidence, no matter how much I love the show!
Saying that though, I’m the sort of guy who laughs a gut up any time I see someone fall over or have an accident so the idea of a movie about an incompetent stuntman who is rubbish at his job, made me think that even if the film is terrible then at least there’d be moments of giggle-inducing material involving people falling off bikes or getting hit in the face etc.
Was I right?
Well…
Self-proclaimed-but-actually-thoroughly-rubbish stuntman Rod Kimble (Andy Samberg) is preparing for the jump of his life; planning to clear fifteen buses in an attempt to raise money for his abusive stepfather Frank’s (Ian McShane) life-saving heart operation. Sick and tired of getting his arse kicked by Frank, and believing that you’re not a real man until you’ve dispensed a thorough arse kicking to someone, Rod decides he’s going to carry out a record-breaking stunt job, earn the money for his stepfather’s heart operation, get him back to full health and then beat the living shit out of him!
Jorma Taccone, Andy Samberg, and Akiva Schaffer – famous for their ‘digital shorts’ (everyone remembers Dick In A Box and Laser Cats right?) on Saturday Night Live – made this movie between the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons of the longest running variety show in television history. The team started rewriting the script from ex-South Park scribe, Pam Brady, in June 2006. Filming began on July 24th and wrapped on September 23rd, before the team reported back to SNL on September 25th.
Samberg adopts the role of Rod Kimble which was originally intended, by Brady, to be a vehicle for Will Ferrell and to be directed by his movie-partner Adam McKay. The film would probably have worked better with Ferrell in the lead because Samberg is just too bland. He is obviously playing it uber-straight in order for the “craziness” around him to appear funnier, but he just doesn’t work.
The film tries so hard to appear wacky and surreal that the try-hard mentality is all that you take note of. The majority of the film’s jokes fall completely flat and you know that when even scenes of silly stunts going horrendously wrong don’t work out then you’re in trouble.
I really wanted to like the film and kept my standards as low as possible but still couldn’t muster even so much as a slight smile. There were brief moments where I warmed a little towards Hot Rod (the Footloose homage where Rod dances the ‘Dance of Passion’ in the woods and anytime Ian McShane and a surprisingly good Sissy Spacek were on screen!) but not enough to make this a film I would recommend.
I’m all for ‘stupid’ comedies (hell, I count Dumb & Dumber as one of the funniest films ever made!) but I think there’s a definite art to them that this film fails to take in to consideration. In fact, for a good 95% of the film’s running time it just appears that Jorma Taccone, Andy Samberg, and Akiva Schaffer have put together a compilation of their favourite little in-jokes and didn’t really care whether we “got” them or not.
Bill Hader, as one of Rod’s ‘crew’, has a few relatively funny moments (still not ‘laugh’ worthy though!) and Will Arnett turns up and does his ‘Gob’ from Arrested Development schtick that is now starting to get a little stale yet is still relatively entertaining, but the rest of the cast are really mediocre and uninteresting. Special mention in terms of such mediocrity must go to Isla Fisher, who’s really burning out her Wedding Crashers “buzz” with her choice of projects since! There’s only so much being-pregnant-with-Borat’s-baby will get you, you know!
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 (hell, most of them are really predictable; Rod wants to be held underwater to prove his level of endurance only to end up needing recusitated? We saw that coming!).
Ian McShane – with his tongue wedged firmly in his cheek throughout – garners this film a single popcorn rating all on his lonesome and, because of my love of all things Saturday Night Live, I’ll be kind and throw another ‘popcorn’ in the film’s direction but, by and large, this is an unfunny, hugely disappointing, affair that really isn’t worth your time.
Check out Super Bad instead if you haven’t already!
And that’s being generous!
Do you want to see Hot Rod in the comfort of your own home, regardless of my opinion? Just click right here to go to Movie2U. I did it and it worked wonders for me! 
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