Pineapple Express is a stupid movie. It won’t change your life, it won’t be winning any Oscars and none of the actors will be scoring praise for their powerful performances.
But goodness me, it’s funny. As long as you slink into the cinema fully aware that your brain is about to receive some giggle-inducing fairy floss, you should have a lovely time.
In
Pineapple Express, the team who created 2007’s
Superbad (Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Judd Apatow) bring you the story of Dale Denton (
Rogen) and his pot-dealer Saul Silver (played by an aesthetically pleasing
James Franco).
Saul introduces Dale to a particularly toe-curling new strain of weed called Pineapple Express, which is so rare that he likens smoking it to "killing a unicorn."
After sampling the wares, Dale becomes the only witness to a murder. He panics and dumps his roach of Pineapple Express at the scene. At that point he realises that the rare weed can probably be traced back to them.
As Dale and Saul grab snacks and run for their lives, they discover that they're not suffering from drug-fuelled paranoia; the bad guys really are hot on their trail and trying to kill them both.
Fundamentally, the plot is unimportant. It’s just a flimsy way to string together car chases, gunfights, slapstick and good ol' fashioned stoner humour...which the film delivers by the kilo.
Rogen recently told
The Sydney Morning Herald’s George Palathingal that their aim was to "make the kind of movie that we would want to see. When we were in high school it was
Superbad, and now that we're a little bit older, it's this movie.
We just thought we could put in a lot of funny stories that happened to us and we love action movies, so we thought that could be a really funny way to explore these idiots. And yeah...I can't believe they let us make it."
Part of the reason the film works is because Franco and Rogen are an excellent duo. They seem to be having an absolute blast making the film, and their enthusiasm and fun oozes from the screen.
Rogen explained to Palathingal that the heterosexual relationship between the male leads is in fact the main focus of this film – as it is with many modern comedies such as
Old School and
Superbad (someone has even came up with a name for this theme: the "Bromance").
"There's just countless stories about guys awkwardly trying to work out their relationships with one another," says Rogen. "It's something that I'm constantly experiencing in life: you meet guys, you're awkwardly trying to work out what exactly your relationship is with them. And every one is different. Y'know, some guys are your best friend, some guys are the guys that you don't wanna be friends with but you kinda have to become friends with. To me it's just hilarious."
While it’s certainly a rollicking ride,
Pineapple Express is not as tight as it could be. Sometimes the scripting is a bit sloppy and it's blatantly obvious that they've ignored loose ends in the race to get to the next punchline or punch-out. Conversely, other sections of the film could have done with a strong edit - every now and then a scene seems to lag and go nowhere.
But hey, it wouldn’t be a stoner flick without some absentmindedness. It’s all part of the charm.
Pineapple Express opens in cinemas on August 7. Check out the trailer here on TheVine.