Near the beginning of Hot Rod, there’s a minor character who does a silly dance involving jerky pelvic thrusts. Later, there’s an entire montage devoted to this guy and his dance. Then there’s another scene where the entire supporting cast launches into silly and unmotivated dance steps. It’s as though the director was sitting on the set, flipping through the script and said, “You know what I just realized? This scene isn’t funny. You guys should just do that silly dance again. It cracked up the teamsters earlier.” And before anyone knew it, the entire movie had become a silly, unmotivated dance.
The script is a barebones take on the sports movie formula with the sport being daredevil stunts. Saturday Night Live star Andy Samberg plays Rod, whose motivation to win stems from a desire to earn enough money for his emotionally abusive stepfather’s heart transplant. Rod wants his stepfather well again so he can kick the guy’s ass, proving his manhood, and he figures he can earn the money by jumping 15 school buses with his moped.
The scripted jokes tend to go like this: Rod places a ramp next to the local swimming pool and tries to jump it, but (get this) he falls short, lands in the water and gets all wet. As if the jokes weren’t inherently predictable, the movie has a habit of announcing them in advance. Rod asks his friends if they’ve reinforced a ramp for his jump. They tell him no, he jumps anyway, and the ramp falls apart. Who saw that coming?
This is why Samberg and company try so hard to insert random quirkiness into every scene, and to Samberg’s credit, he’s the only one who ever pulls it off. (His silly dance scene—a parody of Kevin Bacon’s angsty warehouse dance in Footloose—is actually pretty funny). But hard as he tries, Samberg is no Will Ferrell or Vince Vaughn. While Ferrell can take a tremendously clichéd and unfunny script like Talladega Nights and improvise his way to laughs, Samberg would benefit more from a scripted chuckle or two.
Alas, there are no scripted chuckles. Every joke crashes, face-plants and slides across the asphalt until its teeth explode out the back of its head. And just when you think it can’t get any more gruesome, the movie staggers back onto its feet and begins doing that silly dance again. And that dance wasn’t funny the first time.
Hot Rod
*
Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Bill Hader
Directed by Akiva Schaffer
Rated PG-13
Opens Friday