PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
US, 2008, 111 minutes, Colour.
Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny R. Mc Bride, Kevin Corrigan, Craig Robinson, Gary Cole, Rosie Perez, Ed Begley Jr, Norah Dunn, Amber Heard.
Directed by David Gordon Green.
Some stoner comedies are just too silly and merely offer the audience the opportunity to share in the stoners’ experience and outlook on life – which is not really all that interesting to warrant spending the time with them.
This one is different. Yes, the central characters are stoners (and slackers as well). Yes, they do get high. But, thankfully, there is a little more than that. In fact, the drugs are mostly the occasion for a witness to murder adventure and chase. And, with Judd Appatow as a producer, as with his sex comedies (The Forty Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up), there is a moral shift from irresponsibility to responsibility, this time concerning the use and consumption of drugs.
A respectable Catholic director called Tropic Thunder ‘appallingly funny’. This could apply to Pineapple Express as well. Just in case you were wondering, pineapple express refers to a top quality drug – which is limited in sales in LA , which enables the drug lord to easily trace our two rather witless heroes who are dealers and buyers and know about the murder of a rival Asian drug lord.
Seth Rogen wrote the script. Only 26, he must have had a hankering to be in an action blockbuster but his size and his propensity for playing comic roles probably have excluded his name from potential auditions. So, why not write one for himself? Rogen, who is good at deadpan delivery and has good comic timing, plays a subpoena deliverer who prides himself on the various roles he takes on to deceive the recipients. One happens to be the drug boss (Gary Cole) who is in cahoots with a policewoman (Rosie Perez) and this is where the murder occurs.
What follows is a cat and mouse flight and an action car chase, all with the help of a really out-of-it James Franco (who has been James Dean as well as Spiderman’s friend and foe and also shows good comic timing) and a harassed (and several times almost-killed) Danny R McBride? (The Foot Fist Way, Tropic Thunder).
And, if that sounds all right for an easygoing watch (and allowing for the expected crassness), then Pineapple Express is better than average of this kind of thing.
1.An entertaining slacker comedy? Audience appeal? Target audience? The prologue with the 1937 experiment, drugs, the military abandoning the experiment – and the comedy of the response of the private soldier being high?
2.The work of Seth Rogen, writer, performer, his screen persona?
3.The American city, the apartments and streets? The contrast with the desert? The establishment in the desert for the production of drugs?
4.The special effects, the fights, the chase, the explosions? The range of songs?
5.The title, drugs, the Pineapple Express drug? Arguments about the law, marijuana, its effects? The nature of highs? What happens to the person during a high? The consequences? The fact of drug-taking? The stances pro and con? The sequence with the high school kids and their taking the drugs? The film’s comment that Dale and Saul were not functioning when on a high?
6.The introduction to Dale, smoking pot, listening to the radio, his phone-ins, his wanting to be a radio personality? Serving subpoenas – his disguises, the comedy, the reaction of those receiving them? The introduction to Saul, at home, the layout of his home, watching TV, the drug dealer, smoking, always on a high? Dale as smart? Saul as slow – but wanting to be an architect? The clients visiting him?
7.Dale, going to serve Ted Jones, witnessing the shooting, dropping the roach, crashing the cars, escaping? Going to Saul, realising that both he and Saul could be pursued? In a hurry? The farcical aspects? Going to see Red, Red’s attack, their taping him up, the escape?
8.Ted Jones, the drug dealer, in liaison with Carol, her police work? His thugs? The Asian rivalry? Murdering the Asian? The pursuit of Dale, the thugs going to Red and threatening him? Red and the phone call, giving the information about Dale and Saul? Jones and his decisions, ringing the Asians and threatening them? The build-up to the final set-up, out in the desert, the fights? Carol, the car chase, abducting Saul? The shootings and the fights?
9.Red, his dealing, threatened by the thugs, giving the information, being shot (many times)? Surviving, saying he was ashamed of his behaviour, coming to the rescue? His dying again? Reviving – and the final conversation in the diner? Wanting to be best friends?
10.The action adventure, Dale and Saul in the woods, the issues of the phone and triangulation, late for the appointment, selling the drugs to the kids, the car chase, abduction, the final fights and shootouts?
11.Saul’s grandmother, the thugs threatening her?
12.The school’s security woman, her believing Dale, wanting to get Carol? Saul taking the car – and wrecking it?
13.Angela, Dale going to see her at school, the reaction of the teacher and Dale’s reaction to him, the students and their high school talk? The age different with Dale? The phone calls, inviting him to her house? Dale arriving late after all the adventures, Saul outside, the parents and their primness, the father wanting to eat, Dale’s arrival, the sarcastic talk, his story, the gun, the father firing it, their all escaping, going to the motel, Dale and the phone calls, declaration of love?
14.A stoner comedy, the drugs being the plot development device rather than the theme? Comedians in shootouts and fights, car chases? The dialogue, the one-liners, the wit? The mixture of crass jokes? A typical film example of this kind of stoner comedy?
