Upon seeing the cast list and press for Role Models it would not be unfair to make any number of assumptions about the likely narrative and strain of comedy to expect from the film. The guy in a rut/quarter-life crisis, working in “some brainless job, no goals, no ambition” who in a chance encounter finds the foundations of his cushioned life shaken into adulthood. Along the way the charming protagonist encounters some hilarious and likely crude scenarios only to be met with a final pivotal choice of action which inevitably will result in him proving his new worth, whilst simultaneously teaching the self-righteous grown-ups around him to remember their own child within — cue kiss, funky music, and credits.
Role Models follows the story of Danny (Paul Rudd) and Wheeler (Sean William Scott) whose simple yet unsatisfying lives selling energy drinks to children are disrupted when Danny loses his girlfriend and momentarily his mind, damaging the property of a client school. Danny’s now ex-girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks) is a lawyer who manages to keep them out of jail on the condition that they each carry out 150 hours of community service with the mentoring program Sturdy Wings, run by intense ex-addict Sweeny (Jane Lynch).
Assigned the two most difficult cases within the program — foul-mouthed ten-year-old Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson) and nerdy teen Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) — both Danny and Wheeler work through their own hang-ups, and various outlandish scenarios to eventually give confidence to Augie, break through to the softer side of Ronnie, gain respect from Sweeny, and, of course, win Beth back for Danny. Also using many of the Frat Pack thespian discoveries, Role Models does slide comfortably in alongside the numerous R-rated comedies which have kept so many of us chortling for around ten years now. But is it possible that its title references a new self-reflexive understanding of film's responsibility in popular culture (dare I mention that word ‘responsibility’ — the monster of so many Frat Pack flicks of the noughties?). In producing a film about Role Models is its team stating an attitude to the throne they now sit on?
To answer or even ask these questions suggests that the likes of director David Wain, the team of producers and executive producers, and stars Sean William Scott and Paul Rudd (who also contributed to the screenplay) actually see the throne I refer to. That they are aware of the new strain of dialogue, mannerisms, jokes, and behaviour that Frat Pack films have introduced to popular culture and therefore their power and role within those aspects of our time. That they have enhanced the notion that the goofy geek is also cool, that the thirty-something stoner is tolerable and of course the best of the adages — that everyone has the capacity to achieve. In condoning these approaches, mainstream adults and other over-achievers are consistently shown up as the true social losers, but in the cartoonish distortions of films like Role Models and the many of its ilk that have come before, is this really okay?
Article comments
1 - Jon Beeecher
For the record Ken Jeong and Jane Lynch are not "Wain regulars" as "Role Models" is the first time either of them have worked with Wain (or each other for that matter)