Role Models: LARPers Unite!

LARPers everywhere unite! I wouldn’t be surprised if athletes, musicians and gamers jump into the LARPing experience after seeing Role Models. What Superbad did for clueless geeks and American Pie did for high schoolers everywhere, Role Models does for live action role playing, bringing it to the forefront and makes it look more fun and exciting than an all out paintball war or an intense game of capture the flag. LARPing may even become the hacky-sack of 2009.

If you doubt that any movie can hilariously sustain a plot centered on men and women dressed in royal garb, wielding fake swords and shields, you’d be sorely wrong. With a funny ensemble cast and a unique storyline, Role Models manages to be funny and touching without relying on gross-out humor or being unnecessarily mushy. In other words, it’s a believable story that’s just funny, plain and simple.

The Judd Apatow crew might have some competition from David Wain, Paul Rudd, Ken Marino and Timothy Dowling, who wrote this piece of work, and Wain (Wet Hot American Summer), who directed it. What their movies have in common are big boys trapped in jobs they hate, unable to hold onto a healthy relationship and, in some cases, who never want to grow up. Seann William Scott (American Pie, Mr. Woodcock) and Rudd (The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up) play coworkers Danny and Wheeler who cruise around town in a monster truck, pimping out a toxic energy drink and persuading children to say no to drugs. While Wheeler is completely fulfilled with work and life, Danny feels stuck in a rut, and it’s taking a toll on his attitude and relationship with his lawyer girlfriend, Beth (Elizabeth Banks). When a towing “mishap” lands their truck on top of an elementary school monument, as penance, the two are order to perform 150 hours of community service as big brothers to two outrageous misfits.

Bobb’e J. Thompson plays Ronnie, a foul-mouthed 10-year old, who has scared away all of his prior bigs with rude high-jinx and crazy antics. And Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad) sheds his McLovin’ ways to play Augie, a 16-year old loner who likes his fantasy world more than reality. The writers piece together these four main characters that are completely different to create an authentic story where the audience feels invested in their troubles, laughs with them, roots for them and are happy to be along for the ride.

Wheeler may be Stifler, five years out of American Wedding, but his character is less over-the-top and more endearing. Where Stifler felt like a caricature, Wheeler feels like a real person. Danny’s dry wit and sarcasm may have pushed away the love of his life, but it draws in the audience. And in the beginning, Ronnie and Augie may be the kids you never wanted, but by the end, you long to adopt them, hug them or, at least, take them out for popcorn and a movie.

Jane Lynch is great fun as Gayle Sweeney, the ex-druggie head of Sturdy Wings, the non-profit where the two “volunteer.” And as Paul Rudd’s first foray into writing, he and the rest of the team pull it off. So many comedies nowadays drag on and on way past their comical expiration hour, Role Models, however, clocks in at just over one and a half hours, and it’s the perfect ha-ha fix.