Of Drug Dealers and Men

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Question: why are stoners so fascinated with smoking pot? It’s not exactly cinematic because it’s a relatively dull activity to watch. The audience is kept at a distance during the event because the effects are all mental/chemical: the characters’ viewpoint is altered, but that doesn’t get translated to the viewers–we’re left to guess at what’s happening. Watching people smoke pot on screen is like watching the Food Network with the sound off. It’s like watching someone read a book and not being able to see the words–they’re wrapped up in something happening inside their heads, but all we can do is watch them as they sit there. It’s why there has never been a “nicotine-comedy” film, and the fetishized process looks exactly the same. Ok, I’m sounding like a grouch. There is a good deal of coughing, I’ll give it that.

I fully admit I don’t understand the attraction to stoner comedies–never have been able to sit through a Cheech and Chong movie, and I only like that Bob Saget scene in Half Baked, etc etc–but stoner action movies, which is what Pineapple Express supposedly is, now that’s something different. Pineapple Express, despite feeling slight in many places and a bit overlong, is the funniest movie so far this year, in large part due to James Franco’s performance as the friendly neighborhood drug dealer, Saul.

It feels weird to say that a performance of a stoned drug dealer, which is mainly played for laughs, is sensitive, detailed, and warm, but that’s exactly why Franco’s character is kind of brilliant. I think it’s also somewhat surprising considering the source–I never expected him capable of character-based comedy because of the other roles he has played, usually as Handsome Guy.

What keeps Pineapple Express and all Apatow-produced movies (and actually a lot of other comedies these days) from really standing out as a classic comedy is an over-reliance on ad libbing. Comedy can be funny when it is spur of the moment, when we can see that even the actors are surprised by something that has been said. But ad libbing can’t carry the weight of the majority of a movie’s scenes, especially ones that explain character motivations or plot (luckily, most of the plot found in Pineapple Express leaves out the “l”). I have no doubt that Seth Rogen may be a real hoot to hang out with, or share a joint with. But when I see him in the theatre, he needs to package himself a little more. There’s no reason for this movie to be almost two hours long, but it is; mainly because the actors have to fumble toward the point in each scene.

I had expected that Pineapple Express wouldn’t have this trouble. In my mind, it was going to be the Punch Drunk Love of stoner comedies. Turns out I was giving director David Gordon Green a bit too much credit. His first feature, George Washington, is one of my favorite films, and one of the most beautifully-shot. However, apart from a forest montage in Pineapple Express, his style–and the eye of his longtime Director of Photography Tim Orr–is desperately missed. While I understand that the entire movie couldn’t have been shot during Golden Hour, I had hoped that I would feel a bit more of his touch in this film. The actors are ably directed, the action scenes and gore work pretty effectively, but Pineapple Express doesn’t catapult itself into the realm of truly classic comedies, or even into some weird artsy stoner comedy genre subset. It’s not a failure by any stretch; I just had my hopes too high.

In what is becoming a calling card of Seth Rogen-penned scripts, there is another “McLovin” character in Pineapple Express; Red the middleman. Red bears the brunt of the abuse during the film, and his visage toward the end–complete with bullet holes, a neck brace, and a really terrible perm–is one of the few truly funny impressions that people will take away from this movie. And in that sense, it does go out on a high note–but I can’t help feeling that it missed achieving something more.

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Tags: Apatow, comedy, Franco, Rogen, stoner