Cinema de Gym: 'Role Models'
Friday, September 16, 2011 at 3:00PM Editor's Note: In Cinema de Gym, Kurt writes about whichever piece of whichever movie was playing while he cardio'ed. I wish my gym would play movies.
Kurt here. I've just moved from my suburban Philadelphia stomping grounds to a cozy new place in Brooklyn (yay!). Thus, no more weekly trips to the treadmill screening room, which, even if it had followed me here, would likely fall outside of my new monthly budget. But, fear not! I logged a lot of hours in that offbeat movie house, and though my scale might not reflect that (what gives?), I've compiled quite a lengthy list of gym films du jour. So, rather than bag the column, I'm going to burn through that Cinema de Gym queue, with a promise that my memory is sharp.
Anyhoo, our title for today is Role Models, the 2008 Seann William Scott/Paul Rudd comedy about two dudes forced to mentor young kids as a means of community service. The segment I saw didn't reveal what crime led these guys to do the time, but it did feature a pre-Glee Jane Lynch as a characteristic ball-buster, her oppressive lectures showing more than just shades of Sue Sylvester. If not the probation officer of Scott and Rudd's characters (I couldn't tell), Lynch at least plays the woman running the role-model program, and she's rather candid about her history with drug addiction, the freedom from which has given her purpose, but hasn't much mended her social skills. Used to underscore a subversive tone that paints the legal system as bogus and chaotic, Lynch's slave driver seems wholly unequipped to work with kids, despite a constant assurance of her firm belief in the whole babysitting-as-rehab plan. She pairs Scott and Rudd with Ronnie (Bobb'e J. Thompson) and Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), respectively, two kids whose lives are suffering from a lack of positive parental influence. Augie, specifically, lives with his small-minded mom and her smaller-minded boyfriend, both of whom take cruel, alternating shots at Augie's obsession with medieval role-playing.
However improbable, I liked the whole real-life world of warcraft the film cooks up as Augie's pasttime, a population of devoted, armor-wearing super dorks who turn a neighborhood park into their own Middle Earth, complete with duels, a king (Ken Jeong) and social hierarchy. It's a preferable second life for Augie, but his family's shortcomings render him defenseless when it, too, reveals itself to be a harsh place. Which is of course where Rudd comes into play, joining the club of tunic-wearing plastic sword wielders, and finally confronting Augie's troubles at the source. A dinner scene with Augie's parents has an appropriate, if obvious, gratification, with Rudd offering us vicarious jollies by telling the ignorant adults that they're deadbeats who don't have a clue who their son is. It's the scene in which everyone hears what they need to hear, including Rudd's character, who, if we're going by typical plot logic, fulfills his community service at that very point.
I didn't get to see much of Scott and his foul-mouthed terror, who, as you may know, launched a mini-career as a go-to foul-mouthed terror following his performance in this film. Scott's current lack of work had me missing his presence (a recent stint in rehab offers some explanation for the career dip), and I'm sure if he'd appeared more often I would have had more laughs. The third feature effort from multi-hyphenate David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer), who's got a new one dropping in 2012 with Rudd and Jennifer Aniston, Role Models didn't strike me as all that funny, but it works in concept, and it suggests more emotional ambition than a lot of other titles of its ilk (which are legion, to be sure). Had the Lord of the Rings wagon arrived about eight or nine years earlier than it did (I was 20 when the last film stormed the Kodak), I maybe, just maybe, would have gravitated toward a Renaissance-Faire realm like Augie's, and if my parents were the sort who mocked it, I'm sure I wouldn't have minded having Paul Rudd go to bat for me.
Conclusions?
1. While she's done wonders for Jane Lynch's career, one could argue that Sue Sylvester also highlights how filmmakers have long been typecasting this gifted comedienne.
2. Speaking of typecasting, wouldn't it be interesting to see Mintz-Plasse in a non-geek role?
3. Jerk parents who put their petty interests before those of their kids are pretty high on my list of love-to-hate characters.
4. I can't say I'm a fan of Rudd's career, but I think I'd get pretty weak in the knees if he stepped in to be my hero.
Who's your role model?
Cinema de Gym, Paul Rudd, Role Models, Seann William Scott, comedy 
